


Charles Xavier's A+ Guide to Management (or, How to Completely Destroy Your Life Without Even Trying)

by fro_baby



Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Also just plain sex, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Charles Xavier is spectacularly clueless, Fluff and Angst, Humor, Loki Laufeyson is a major creep, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-13
Updated: 2012-12-31
Packaged: 2017-11-12 02:03:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 85,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/485446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fro_baby/pseuds/fro_baby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Charles and Erik run a newspaper, wrangle interns, outrun the feds, outwit a multinational crime lord, get royally fucked over (twice), eat prawns, argue over comma errors, dodge (and fail to dodge) airborne projectiles, make many snarky remarks, drive around in the desert, fight, make up, fight again, and slowly (but surely) fall in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This started off as a NaNoWriMo and became a never-ending WIP. A million thanks to my friends for reading, editing, and helping me through my endless title dithering.

_“CHARLES!”_

The shout blasts through the wall behind him with the force of a nuclear bomb. Well, maybe not _quite_ —the wall is, after all, still standing—but the sound is still loud enough to make him cringe and type an inadvertent string of j’s into the middle of the story he’s currently editing. So perhaps it’s more like…a car alarm, or maybe an anachronistic teenager with a boom box held above his head and cranked up all the way. But instead of a creepy eighties movie, that teenager is in the office next door, and instead of Peter Gabriel, he’s playing the soundtrack to pure rage.

Sighing, Charles takes a sip of his tea and glances at his watch. It’s barely nine. He stifles a groan; it is _way_ too early in the morning for yelling. He _hates_ days that start with yelling. Days that start with yelling invariably continue with more yelling, which usually devolves into screaming matches, which occasionally devolve into fistfights. Days that start with yelling almost always end with Charles sitting, catatonic, in front of his television in a reality-TV-and-beer-induced stupor. Days that start with yelling are generally followed by mornings that involve headaches, empty bottles, and serious reconsiderations of his career choices.

Now, actually, would be a _great_ time to seriously reconsider his choice of career, but instead he puts down his tea, saves his first attempt at untangling one of Hank’s unintelligible drafts, and gets up from his dilapidated swivel chair. The very least, he thinks absently as he heads for the door, that they could do is buy him a new bloody chair. This one’s never been quite the same ever since Logan and Scott’s grand wheelie chairs vs. stairs tournament (as far as Charles can tell, the winner was whiskey).

Outside his office, the newsroom is eerily silent; all heads turn in his direction when he emerges and begins the all-too-short journey to the office next door. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Alex (who is definitely supposed to be out covering the high school baseball game) shake his head and whistle under his breath. Promptly, Scott reaches over from his copy cave to smack his younger brother upside the head and mutter something along the lines of “can it, shitshow.” One of these days, Charles thinks, he’s going to have a little discussion with the elder Summers about the appropriateness of corporal punishment in the workplace, but for now, he’s got bigger problems. He’s just arrived at Erik’s door.

He pauses, takes a deep breath, his eyes sliding across the all-too-familiar plaque: _Editor In Chief, Amistad Avenger_. And he knows full well that that plaque has been there for decades, but sometimes he still feels like Erik put it there just to intimidate him. The worst part is that it works every bloody time.

But not, he thinks firmly, this time. He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and tries to collect his thoughts.

-

Amistad is a tiny desert town with a population of two thousand, a name straight out of a John Steinbeck novel, and the highest per capita crime rate in the southwestern United States. It’s not too far from the border, which explains a good bit of the crime; there’s a chronically overrun and understaffed crossing not 20 miles away, so the town is crawling with _coyotes_ and their drugs and their guns. There’s also the fact that the entire place is an arid wasteland, so there’s no agriculture and certainly no tourism. The railroads went bust in the fifties when the highway came through town, and the few remaining factories shut down pretty much the minute that the Chinese figured out how to make stuff. By the seventies, Amistad was a ghost town. Ironically enough, the drug wars in Mexico and ensuing border battles have sort of rejuvenated the town, expanding the previous zero options for Amistad residents to a grand total of two: commit crime, or fight it.

That is Amistad, and this is its newspaper. The Avenger, named decades ago by some failed gold-rush truth-crusader who tried to right the world’s wrongs through poorly spelled newsprint, has a full-time staff of nine, all of whom work in a cramped newsroom jammed into one floor of a rickety old building in the historic downtown. They are two blocks from city hall, around the corner from the courthouse, and across the street from the fire department (the latter has proved invaluable upon several occasions that Charles does his best not to remember).

The Amistad Avenger is, quite frankly, a relic. Charles is fully aware of the fact that a small-town, locally-published newspaper with a miniscule staff and an even smaller budget is a hopeless leftover from an era before iPhones, Blackberries, and asshole “news” bloggers on the internet, but…well, he thinks it’s quaint and adorable, in a pathetic sort of way. Besides, the satellite internet out here is so slow that it’s actually more efficient to wait for the Avenger to hit newsstands than to try and load CNN’s homepage.

And in a weird sort of way, it’s actually a damn good paper. It’s one of the only neutral things in this whole town; as Charles has to remind Erik at least seventeen times a week, their job is to tell the truth, not serve justice. Yeah, sure, it’s hard, especially when you have to write a nice, dispassionate story about the child rapist who just got let off on a legal technicality, but, well…that’s what this business is about, isn’t it? Because despite what its name might suggest, the Amistad Avenger isn’t out to avenge shit. It’s supposed to tell the truth.

-

Charles opens his eyes, feeling his heart recede slightly from where it was previously thundering in the back of his throat. He’s by no means calm, but this is about as ready as he’ll ever be—and besides, he can’t keep Erik waiting for too much longer. Briefly, he considers knocking, but decides that would most likely just aggravate the beast further. Instead, he takes a deep breath, pushes the door open, and pokes his head inside.

“Hi,” he says, erecting what he considers to be a particularly miraculous façade of cheeriness, “You do know that my office is right next to yours, right? And, you know, I don’t think that the drywall is all that thick, so you _really_ don’t have to shout quite so loudly. And there is always the internet and that sort of thing, and since I’ve got a computer _and_ a Blackberry I’d say it’s a pretty safe bet that you can reach me that way too. Instead of, you know, yelling. Or maybe we could establish some sort of system of knocking, so that you could just sort of thump on the wall whenever you need me, and there could be, like, one thump for “come here I need to talk to you” and two thumps for “go out and deal with whatever it is, I’m busy” and three for “get in here right this instant, everything is on fire” and four for “phone the authorities, Logan’s been drinking,” though I suppose that those two are awfully similar-”

“Charles.” Erik cuts him off, looking none too amused (though that is, Charles supposes, his default expression, so he’s not planning his escape route just yet). “Stop babbling.”

“I’m doing that again, aren’t I?” Charles says just a _bit_ too loudly. Well, so much for calm. You’d think after two years he’d have gotten over this whole terror thing. “You keep telling me not to do that, but, you see, it becomes a bit difficult when you’re, you know, sort of sitting there trying to reduce me to cinders with your eyes, _seriously_ , what did I do this time, I haven’t even let any stray cats into the office this week, I thought you’d be proud-”

“What,” Erik interrupts again, raising his voice over Charles’ semi-hysterical blather as he points to his computer screen, “Is this? Would you care to explain it to me, since you seem so keen on talking this morning?”

“I, uh,” Charles mumbles, slipping all the way into Erik’s office and closing the door behind him because _shit,_ it’s one of those days. “‘That’s your computer’ would be the wrong answer, wouldn’t it?”

“Well done, Charles,” Erik says coldly. In spite of what all his survival instincts are screaming, Charles takes a step towards Erik’s desk and tries to get a better look at the computer screen.

“Um,” he says, “That looks like Janos’s story about the shoot-out at the 7-11 last night. Isn’t it?”

“His story,” Erik repeats softly, dangerously, making all the hairs on the back of Charles’ neck stand on end, “Which you edited this morning, correct?”

“Correct,” Charles says, leaning in to look still closer. “Why, what’s wrong with it? Did I miss an egregious typo? I reworked the lead a bit, it was wordy as all hell, but other than that I didn’t really-”

“ _Look_ , Charles,” Erik orders, reaching around him to point to one particular line of text (and Charles would really just like to pretend that it’s a little chilly in here and that’s why he’s got goose bumps all over, thank you very much). “ _The police stated that the weapons involved came from an unknown source._ ”

"Ah,” Charles says very, very quietly. He knows all too well what this is about, but there’s a small, pathetic part of him that doesn’t want to confront the thing just yet. It’s that part of him that opens his mouth and says, “I don’t see what the problem is. That’s what the police said-”

“ _An unknown source_ , Charles?” Erik roars, and, okay, he definitely _didn’t_ just leap to his feet and grab Charles by the shoulders and spin him around in order to yell at him more directly. “We know perfectly damn well what the source of those weapons was!”

“Erik, we-” Charles begins, but Erik, not one to break a good streak once he’s got it going, cuts him off yet again.

“You let that _by_ you, Charles? You let that slide, knowing _full well_ that you and Janos and everyone in this goddamn town know where those guns came from?”

“I am _not_ about to get one of our interns _killed_ , Erik,” Charles snaps, squaring his shoulders and lifting his chin to glare straight back into those thunderous eyes because they’ve _had_ this argument before and Erik knows all too well what his position is on the matter. “For god’s sake, the boy’s only nineteen, he doesn’t need the full force of the rage of-”

“It’ll be my fucking rage coming down on him if he doesn’t fix this goddamn story,” Erik growls, kicking his wheelie chair away from his desk and striding towards the door.

In a moment of temporary insanity (the kind of ‘temporary’ insanity that he’s suffered from for his whole life), Charles puts himself in the way. Instantly, he’s reminded of just how _short_ he is, how _tall_ Erik is, and how loudly Erik’s knuckles crack when his hands clench into fists.

“Leave him be, Erik,” Charles says firmly, doing his best to hold his ground and ignore the sensation of being a hamster blocking the path of a Rottweiler. “He’s only doing what he’s been told.”

“It’s _lying_ , Charles,” Erik says, and there’s a kind of helpless desperation creeping around the edges of his voice that makes something inside Charles twist uncomfortably. “We can’t lie to our readers.”

“Erik,” Charles sighs, holding out his hands, placating, palms up, “Remember what happened last time.”

-

The problem, see, is their publisher.

More specifically: their publisher, who is also the largest arms dealer in the Southwest.

Needless to say, Tony Stark is not the sort of man you want to cross. The guy sells guns to drug cartels, angry rednecks, and grade-a hit men, builds new and horrific weapons in his spare time, _and_ publishes a newspaper. He’s not just a criminal; he’s a fucking _philanthropist_.

Though actually, who you _really_ don’t want to cross is Pepper Potts. She’s Stark’s secretary-slash-assistant-slash-accountant-slash-business manager-slash-bodyguard, handles all his publicity, and can put a bullet between a man’s eyes at fifty yards. Charles considers this an unbelievably dangerous combination and tries to avoid her at all costs, despite Tony’s repeated assurances that she’s really a very nice lady.

Because the thing is, Charles thinks Tony is a pretty nice guy. And by pretty nice, Charles means ‘complete and utter asshole, but somehow sort of likeable dear god how does that even work.’ Of course, Charles tends to think that most people are somehow sort of likeable, but that’s a whole other issue.

The issue _here_ is that hardly a week goes by when they don’t have to wriggle their way out of mentioning Tony Stark’s name in a less-than-flattering story. Because, in case it’s not obvious, the man sells a whole lot of guns. And a whole lot of those guns end up being used in various situations that Charles calls ‘unfortunate’ and Logan calls ‘straight-up clusterfucks’—and which, of course, the Avenger is compelled to write about.

And that ‘last time’ that Charles has to remind Erik of every single time this issue comes up (generally at least once a week, which should give you a pretty good idea of just _how many guns_ Tony sells)? Erik completely lost it and, without consulting anyone, changed ‘an unknown arms trafficker’ to ‘notorious arms dealer Tony Stark.’ Charles only caught it by chance three hours past deadline, long after they’d gone to press, and wow, was _that_ not a pretty scene. Actually, it mostly involved Charles being very, _very_ calm (read: passive aggressive), Erik being very, _very_ not (read: just plain aggressive), and everyone else edging nervously towards the nearest exit until Charles gave up and went home in a huff to drink tea and fret.

What no one ever managed to figure out was how the masthead got changed. All anyone knew was that the small box of text on the back page of the paper that had formerly named the editor in chief and managing editor now proclaimed that Erik Lehnsherr was “Asshat Number 1” and Charles Xavier was “Asshat Number 2.” Charles wasn’t sure which was more offensive: the fact that sixty percent of the staff, including Scott fucking Summers, laughed until their stupid bloody faces turned blue, or the fact that Erik got to be number one and he had to be number two.

The laughter, however, quickly subsided when they all discovered that they couldn’t change it _back_. Because as hilarious as Erik the Asshat was in theory, the man stomping around the office smiling grimly and asking sweetly if anyone had managed to fix the ‘little issue’ was an utterly terrifying reality. Sean and Hank eventually locked themselves in the IT office with three laptops and a liter of Mountain Dew and didn’t come back out for several hours. When they did, they looked unsurprisingly haggard, rubbing their faces sheepishly and admitting that they had no fucking clue. And, okay, it is possible that Charles was not there to shield them from Erik’s unmitigated rage because he had by this point locked himself in a bathroom stall in order to breathe in peace, but he did eventually emerge, fend off the irate Erik, and suggest very, very calmly that perhaps everyone ought to go home now.

The next morning, it was gone. The masthead was completely back to normal; no mentions of asshats in sight. That day’s edition printed just as normal and everyone thanked Sean and Hank although they all knew it wasn’t their doing.

Because that, as Logan said, is just the kind of sadistic bastard that Tony Stark is. Charles often wishes that there were some sort of law against the sort of psychological torture that their publisher subjects them to, but he still manages to be grateful that things have not yet escalated to the physical level. Unfortunately, he worries that mere pranks will not be enough to satisfy Pepper Potts if they ever get on her bad side. Let’s just say that he’d rather not verify the rumor that she can crush a man’s skull between her thighs.

And yes, it definitely kills him a little inside to have to lie like this, and yes, it goes completely against every journalistic ethics lecture he sat through in grad school, and yes, the helpless rage flickering in Erik’s eyes makes him want to do something really dreadful to Tony Stark (though, if he’s being honest with himself, what it really makes him want to do is take Erik home, fix him a cup of cocoa, read him a bedtime story, and watch him sleep in a totally non-creepy way).

But the survival of his staff is more important than all of that (yes, even more than the cocoa and the bedtime story), and so he does what he has to. Unlike many people, Charles is good at that.

-

Erik, unfortunately, is not. If Charles had to write each of their mottos, his own would go something like “keep buggering on and try to smile and be polite to everyone and maybe sleep every once in a while.” And Erik’s…well, Erik doesn’t really have a motto, doesn’t need one in the same way that a pit bull with its jaws locked onto an ankle doesn’t need one. He doesn’t philosophize, doesn’t dogmatize, doesn’t chop his life up into neat little mottos. He just _does_.

Charles really thinks he should stop comparing Erik to irate canines, but sometimes he just can’t help it; the image is just too perfect. When Erik is angry, as he is now, his fists clench, his shoulders rise, and his mouth twitches in a barely-repressed snarl. Some small, sick corner of Charles’ mind starts imagining that dark, slicked-back hair standing on end like hackles on an angry dog, and then he has to cover his mouth to conceal the ill-timed laugh trying to fight its way out.

“What’s so fun-” Erik demands, but breaks off when Logan bursts into his office.

“Banner’s gone batshit again,” he announces, sounding _far_ more gleeful that he should. “Some new shit he cooked up. Witness says he’s pulling trees up by the roots. Again.”

“Oh, my,” Charles says quietly. “And the trailer park had so few of those in the first place. That place is going to turn into Death Valley if he doesn’t quit it.”

“You know, I really wish Barnes would get that guy locked up for good one of these days,” Erik says grimly. “This shit is getting really old.”

“Ah, but he keeps things so interesting,” Charles chuckles, shrugging his cardigan off his shoulders and rolling up his shirtsleeves. “I’ll take a few interns down there, shall I?”

“Sure, send the kittens in to see the alligator,” Erik scoffs and sits back down at his desk, the Stark business mercifully forgotten for the moment. “Just try not to get any heads ripped off, will you? Our health insurance is expensive enough as it is.”

“I shall do my best,” Charles grins, heading for the open door. “No promises about the decapitation thing, though—occupational hazard and all that.”

“And take Azazel with you,” Erik calls after him in that voice he uses when he’s doing his very best not to be amused. “Everyone always likes the pictures of the trailer park getting fucked up beyond all recognition.”

“Will do,” Charles calls over his shoulder before stepping out into the newsroom. “Interns! I need you!”

With remarkable speed (Logan’s got them well trained at this point, and Charles just tries not to think about what, exactly, Logan’s training methods involve), the four interns assemble and line up in front of him, arms at their sides and backs ramrod straight.

“Ready, sir!” Armando barks with military sharpness, but Charles just sighs and waves the words away.

“Please, Armando, none of that. For god’s sake, this isn’t Fort Hood, I’m not sending you off to war—well, considering this town, you never really…look, never mind. Just…stop with the military stuff for now, please. I’ll have a word with Logan about that, don’t look so frightened.”

Exchanging dubious looks, the interns droop back into their normal slouches, and Charles has to stifle another sigh. At least Logan’s methods improved their abysmal posture…but now is not the time. He makes a mental note to talk to Logan when (or, a dark corner of his mind says, if) he returns from the trailer park.

“Now,” he says, clasping his hands, businesslike, “As you may know, there’s been a bit of an…incident down at the trailer park involving Doctor Banner. And we’re going to go down there to—yes, Alex?” He interrupts himself as the youngest, blondest, and most inordinately violent and insubordinate intern raises his hand.

“By ‘incident,’” Alex says, putting air quotes around the word, “Do you mean, ‘Doctor Banner’s gotten blasted out of his mind again and is fucking the shit out of everything’?”

“Language, Mr. Summers,” Charles says automatically. “But you do, essentially, have the right idea. Angel, please put your phone away, now is not the time for texting. Don’t give me that look, I can _tell_ when you’ve got it in your jacket pocket and I want it _off_. Now, run and grab your notebooks, and I mean _just_ your notebooks, no cell phones or iPods—oh, and Janos, could you go fetch Azazel, please? We’re going to need some pictures of this.”

He watches them disperse into the newsroom and can’t help but feel a faint pang of doubt about bringing them anywhere near a hopped-up Bruce Banner. Angel nearly walks into a door because she won’t take her eyes off her phone, Alex pauses in his search for his notebook to start a miniature fistfight with his brother, away from which Armando has to drag him, and Janos…well, Janos actually runs off to do what he’s told, which is sort of comforting but not quite enough to make up for the fact that Charles has hired a pack of incompetent children.

-

“Well, at least we’re not paying them,” Logan observed dryly the first day Charles brought the interns into the office.

The interns had been something of a…point of contention, to say the least, for the past few weeks. There had been several arguments, most of which involved such choice phrases as, “We need to educate more young people about our profession, Erik,” and, “Is this going to be like the goddamn cats again, Charles? I’m not having the goddamn cats again.” Eventually, by some miracle of persistence, endless pestering, puppy eyes, sulking, pleading, and cajoling, Charles triumphed. The next day, they printed a tiny advertisement reading: _Interns wanted. Must be students, literate, and not too easily scarred._

They got four applicants, and Charles…well, Charles accepted all of them. He couldn’t help it; they all seemed so sweet and earnest and hard-working and not too fucked up in the head, and besides, free labor never hurt anyone, right? After all, they only had four reporters on staff, and that was when no one was hospitalized. Interns, as he promised Erik at least six zillion times, would make a wonderful addition to the paper.

Interns, as it turned out, were far more work than expected. There was, of course, the inevitable difficulty of having both Summers brothers in the same _room_ , let alone the same building (day after day, Charles wonders how on earth their parents managed). After the first few snapped pens, shattered picture frames, and head injuries, Charles moved Alex’s cubicle to the opposite side of the newsroom from Scott’s. Briefly, he considered making each of them a break and bathroom schedule to ensure that they would never cross paths in the office, but instead settled for charging the rest of the staff with ensuring that the siblings stayed far, far away from each other. They don’t always do everything he tells them to, but _that_ order, they followed.

And then there was Angel’s constant texting problem, which didn’t bother Charles too much until she nearly got Sean killed when they were out covering the St. Patrick’s Day parade (it’s a very long story involving some very drunk people and a very large leprechaun float, but suffice to say that it very nearly ended very, very badly). Erik, true to form, flew into a rage and threatened to fire her ( _can we really fire interns,_ Charles wondered, to which Erik replied _I can fire the hell out of her if I damn well want to I run this goddamn newspaper_ ). Fortunately, Erik was saved from having to fire the hell out of her by Emma Frost, who took the sulky intern under her wing and devoted her entirely to the arts section. Charles was deeply relieved, and so was Angel; after all, she could text all she wanted at concerts and gallery openings.

Mando and Janos, thankfully, proved to be far less problematic; Janos just sort of fell in with Azazel (which, Charles supposes, isn’t all that surprising considering Janos manages to go for days on end without saying a single word and Azazel is Russian and basically hates everyone), and poor sweet Armando started following Alex around trying to keep him from turning the office into a smoking crater. The results of his efforts were mixed at best, but Charles definitely noticed that fewer things got broken whenever Alex and Mando were together.

After the first week, Erik ambushed Charles in the break room and asked him, grinning dryly, how exactly he’d managed to the pick four most dysfunctional kids in town. After nearly choking on his tea, Charles cleared his throat, smiled, and said, “Well, how did you hire your entire staff?”

-

It’s a short, bumpy ride from the Avenger offices to the trailer park, but it feels considerably longer thanks to the four sulky interns crammed into Charles’ dilapidated Subaru. He hates to say it, but for once he’s actually grateful that Angel is glued to her phone; at least it’s keeping her completely silent, which is more than can be said for Alex. The younger Summers appears to have embarked upon some sort of quest to make Janos talk—or, at the rate things are going, punch him in the face.

“C’mon, buddy, c’mon,” Alex says loudly from the back seat, reaching forward to jostle Janos’ remarkably stiff shoulder. “I know you’ve got a voice box in there somewhere, c’mon, you’re not just, like, some kind of fuckin’ mute, are you? Because that’d be real shitty, I mean, a mute working at a newspaper—how the fuck would you interview anybody? Show ‘em fuckin’ flashcards?”

“ _Language_ , Alex, please,” Charles says, briefly taking his eyes off the road to shoot a sympathetic glance at Janos, who steadfastly ignores him.

“Sorry, boss,” Alex says, not meaning it, and jostles Janos again. “C’mon, man, what’s the matter, you mad or something? Or are you just, like, I dunno-”

It is right about then that Charles decides he’s had enough; without glancing away from the road, he turns on NPR just about as loud as it can go. Even Alex, it turns out, gives up on talking when he’s being entirely drowned out by _All Things Considered_ , and so the rest of the ride passes in relative peace. Charles isn’t quite sure, but he thinks he sees a flicker of relief pass over Janos’ face.

It’s not long before they arrive at the trailer park—or what’s left of it, anyway. Charles pulls the car to an abrupt stop, and from the back seat he hears Alex whistle under his breath. For once, Charles is inclined to agree with him.

Logan wasn’t kidding; trees have been ripped up by the roots, the dry earth cracked and split open like mortar craters. What Logan _failed_ to mention were the trailers that have been pushed over onto their sides, dismal flowerbeds and tricycles crushed underneath them like Dixie cups. It’s not hard to find the source of the destruction: a path of wrecked trailers and splintered trees leads straight to it.

Bruce Banner is not a particularly frightening man. True, he’s fairly large, but he’s also sort of shambling and ridiculous in an absent-minded, high school English teacher sort of way. There’s nothing inherently threatening about him—that is, aside from the fact that he’s throwing _tree trunks_ in six different directions with his bare hands.

Because Bruce Banner is not an ordinary drug cooker. Ordinary drug cookers cook the stuff and sell it to dealers, plain and simple. Ordinary drug cookers do _not_ mix up newer, crazier kinds of drugs and then _test them on themselves._

But it’s exactly his bizarre methodology that makes Bruce Banner so hard to get rid of, because no one can actually convict the guy of dealing. As far as anyone can tell, all he does is get fucked up on his own drugs and break stuff. The breaking stuff, of course, is what’s problematic, but actually getting close enough to the guy to arrest him is even more problematic. Even Sheriff Thor isn’t crazy enough to try that shit, and he’s…well, he’s Sheriff Thor.

In fact, Sheriff Thor is currently ducking and weaving his way through the war zone formerly known as a trailer park, trying to get close enough to Banner to shout at him. Or whatever it is that Thor does; Charles isn’t always entirely clear, but it certainly never fails to make entertaining copy.

“Come along, children,” he calls, pulling the keys out of the ignition and pushing his door open. “Let’s go see some news.”

The interns trail after him as he picks his way across the dusty parking lot to where Deputy Barton is leaning against a squad car and looking remarkably unimpressed.

“Gonna have to advise you to keep a safe distance, Xavier,” the deputy says flatly, folding his arms and leveling an I-have-many-more-things-to-worry-about-right-now-than-your-skinny-ass look at Charles, who just smiles. He’s used to it by now.

“Good to see you too, Clint,” he says brightly, dodging around the squad car to try and get a better look at the imminent confrontation between the blitzed-out chemist and the sheriff.

“Back it up, buddy,” Clint orders, and Charles finds himself being dragged backwards by his shirt collar. “Don’t want you gettin’ hit by a flying tree trunk or something. Be tragic, that would.”

“Indeed,” Charles agrees vaguely, craning his neck and squinting into the brilliant morning sun. “Erm…correct me if I’m wrong, deputy, but it appears that Dr. Banner is attempting to engage the sheriff in a jousting match. With _trees_.”

“With—oh, for the love of _god_ ,” Clint groans, releasing Charles and shading his eyes to get a better look. “They’re not seriously—oh my _fuck_ , Thor’s actually, did he just, oh my god they do not pay me enough for this shit, I’m not fucking _Sancho Panza_ here, this is fucking ridiculous—”

He starts to run off towards the impromptu jousting match, but skids to a stop a few yards away and turns around to yell, “Don’t—don’t fucking _go_ anywhere, okay, Xavier? The last thing I need is you getting your posh ass kicked around by Bruce fucking Banner, okay, just, just _stay_ there, don’t meddle—aw, what the fuck am I saying, asking _you_ not to meddle—alright, just, uh, try not to die, okay?”

“You can count on me, deputy.” Charles smiles, innocent as can be, hands clasped behind his back like an angelic schoolboy. Clint just snorts, rolls his eyes, and sprints off again. Even from this distance, Charles can hear him yelling something along the lines of, “Thor! Put the fucking tree—no, Jesus H. Christ on a bicycle, that is not—this is not how we settle things, do you not fucking— _Thor_ , Jesus, no, what’re you—”

“I will not suffer this affront to my manhood!” Thor bellows, drowning out his enraged deputy. “You have reached the altitude of aerial children’s toys, scum! Be silent, or you shall not live to speak further insults regarding my mother! She is a good and honorable woman and gave birth to many strong and able sons!”

Before Clint can reach him, Thor has swung a tree trunk at Banner and sent him flying into the side of a trailer. The sheriff’s triumphant roar doesn’t quite overwhelm his deputy’s scream of outrage.

-

It’s sort of a funny story about Sheriff Thor. It begins six or seven years ago when, for some bizarre reason, a Norwegian family moved to Amistad. Being the industrious Nordic people that they were, they promptly took over the town; Odin Borrson became the world’s most terrifying one-eyed judge, his wife Frigga began running the Our Lady of Mercy Hospital, and their son Thor became sheriff. No one seems entirely sure of exactly how that happened; there have been plenty of whispers about Odin and the mysterious “accident” that offed the previous sheriff, but everyone’s too terrified of the old judge to say a word.

It’s not that Thor is a bad sheriff. He arrests more people in a year than the old sheriff managed in three, and over half of them turn out to actually be criminals. But Thor is…well, Thor is inordinately large, extremely blond, and has an extraordinarily bad temper and a tenuous grasp of English at best. As entertaining as his astonishingly convoluted medieval phrases are, it turns out that many people (ie, people who only speak Spanish) have difficulty understanding that “Submit to bondage, villain, and speak not for fear of echoes returning to condemn you” means “You’re under arrest, and anything you say may and will be used against you in court.” They’ve had more Miranda rights headaches than anyone cares to remember, but Charles doesn’t mind. It’s never hard to get good quotes out of Sheriff Thor.

And then there’s the fact that Sheriff Thor has been arrested more times than all the _coyotes_ put together. That’s partially thanks to his predilection for boilermakers (beer, whiskey, and Norse really don’t mix well) but mostly thanks to his ever-charming deputy, Clint Barton.

Clint Barton has lived in Amistad for his entire life and is generally regarded as the biggest asshole in town, which is pretty impressive considering that the same town also contains Tony Stark and Erik Lehnsherr. Charles sort of likes Clint, though; anyone with the balls to arrest their own boss is pretty impressive in his book—though, he’s always had a weird thing for dangerous men.

Not that he has a thing for Clint Barton; that would just be weird, and besides, he’s not sure he could handle _quite_ that much douchebaggery in his everyday life. He’s already got Erik, anyway. To, er, fulfill his douchebaggery quotient, that is. Not to…well, that’s probably enough on _that_ particular subject.

-

Besides, at present he’s got more pressing matters to worry about. Namely, how to get close enough to the jousting match to snag some good quotes without actually getting any of the interns killed. Now is the time to make a run for it, since Clint has currently got his hands full attempting to persuade Thor that this is an opportune moment to arrest Dr. Banner, not to “complete his victory in the name of Mother Frigga.”

“Alright, children,” Charles says briskly, “Let’s—oh, there you are, Azazel, good. I was just about to suggest that we go take a closer look at this little altercation.”

Azazel, sliding out of the tiny imported shitbox that he calls a car (Charles has always wondered how the thing ended up in Azazel’s hands and not, say, a museum of Soviet relics), fixes him with the usual flat stare, one dark eyebrow raised slightly in an are-you-shitting-me-this-is-not-a- _little_ -altercation-you-stupid-posh-bastard look, but as usual, he says nothing and nods tersely.

“Right, then,” Charles says, squaring his shoulders and flipping open his notebook. “Shall we?”

They begin to pick their way across the wreckage formerly known as the trailer park with Charles leading the way and doing his best to avoid the occasional smashed, smoking toaster or shredded tire swing. Just ahead, Bruce Banner is staggering to his feet, the splintered remnants of a tree trunk hanging loosely in one hand. Thor opens his mouth, and Charles raises his notebook to capture whatever brilliant bit of Thor-ness is about to ensue—that is, until Banner swings the tree trunk and sends the sheriff skidding backwards into the hole that must have once held its roots. Beside him, Charles hears the _snick_ of a shutter and turns to Azazel, somewhat awestruck.

“Did you get that?” he asks hopefully.

“I got that,” Azazel nods, something that might just be a smile flickering across his face.

“Excellent,” Charles says, unable to contain the triumphant grin making its way across his face.

“Jeee-sus,” Alex says, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“Seriously,” Armando agrees. “Remind me never to get on _his_ bad side.”

“An excellent policy, Armando,” Charles says, daring to take a few steps towards the hole out of which Thor is currently attempting to climb. “Sheriff!” Charles calls at the slowly emerging blond head, “Sheriff, I was wondering if you’d tell me exactly what charges Dr. Banner is being arrested on. Sheriff? Sheriff, are you-”

“Clint, I thought you told me that you would dispense with these irritating people of news,” Thor grumbles as he heaves himself up out of the smoking crater. “I need no charges to arrest the maker of narcotics; I operate under the authority of the Allfather, who shall righteously punish the wrongdoers of-”

“Thor, Jesus,” Clint cuts in, forcibly turning the hulking sheriff away from Charles' furiously scribbling pen. “Remember that whole conversation we had about, y’know, those things that _we don’t tell reporters_? Like, uh, well, “I need no charges to arrest the maker of narcotics” is a pretty fuckin’ good example of that, buddy. Because that’s basically telling the press that, y’know, you do what you want, which, okay, they basically know already but— _Jesus_ , Xavier, you’re writing all this down, aren’t you, you _fucker_ , I thought I told you to stay back!”

“So you did,” Charles grins, clambering up on top of an overturned trailer to peer down at Bruce Banner, who currently appears to be huddling under the cover of an upside-down pickup truck and _twitching_. “An admirable effort, Deputy, but rather ineffective, I’m afraid.”

“Should’ve known,” Clint sighs, putting a rather useless steadying hand on Thor’s enormous arm. “You alright there, Sheriff?”

“Bruce Banner will regret the day he saw the light of the sun,” Thor growls, brushing the dust off his shoulders.

“Brilliant!” Charles says, adding the quote to the ever-growing list in his notebook.

“Jesus Christ,” Clint groans.

Then, without warning, Thor leaps up onto Charles’ trailer, making the thin metal vibrate so violently that Charles goes staggering sideways like a drunk on a merry-go-round. As he tries to right himself, his foot slips over the edge, and with a faint yelp, he falls. The four-foot drop to the dusty ground is brief but nasty, and it takes him a moment to collect himself enough to mumble, “Well. That was rather unexpected, Sheriff.”

“There are matters of greater importance to me than you, Charles Xavier,” Thor says bluntly, dropping gracefully off the edge of the trailer and hitting the ground in an explosion of dust.

“I’m crushed, really,” Charles says, coughing as he pushes himself up onto his hands and knees. “For a moment there I really thought you liked me, but now I suppose I’ll just have to go cry for a little while and maybe eat some ice cream straight out of the-”

“Xavier,” Clint says, and there’s something in his voice that makes Charles look up to where he’s standing, squinting, on top of the trailer, “I’d suggest that you get the fuck out of there. Right now.”

When Charles looks away from Clint and towards Bruce Banner, he sees Thor advancing on the enraged doctor, gun in hand. And, okay, Clint Barton is an asshole, but he’s a _correct_ asshole, because it looks like things are about to get really ugly and here is not the place that Charles should be.

“Right, ah,” Charles says, struggling to his feet, “I’m just going to, uh…oh, oh dear.”

Because he looks back over his shoulder and shit, shit, Banner’s unfocused gaze has locked onto the advancing sheriff and there’s a rather large branch in his hand and oh, oh god, oh shit, he’s about to throw it, isn’t he?

Before Charles can clamber over the trailer to safety, Banner throws it. This wouldn’t be such a bad thing if Thor didn’t have such excellent reflexes and Charles did, because Thor ducks and Charles doesn’t and the branch sails right over Thor’s head and hits Charles’.

“Fuck,” Charles says, muffled, before he slides to the ground and everything goes black.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not entirely sure yet what my update schedule is going to be, but have another chapter now just for kicks.

The story of how Charles ended up in Amistad is sort of a long one, but a shortened version goes something like this:

May, 1999: Charles Xavier, age sixteen, graduates from an elite boys’ prep school in Westchester, New York. He is the youngest in his class.

May, 2003: Charles Xavier, age twenty, graduates from Harvard with two bachelor’s degrees in English and History.

June, 2003: Charles Xavier gets into a fight with his mother over graduate school. She disinherits him and cuts him off from his trust fund. They never speak again.

May, 2005: Charles Xavier, age twenty-two, graduates from the Columbia School of Journalism with a master’s degree in newspaper journalism. He has paid his entire way through school.

February, 2006: Charles Xavier, age twenty-three, is hired by the New York Times as a reporter for the Metro Section. He has never been happier in his life and can now afford food other than ramen noodles and Tang.

April, 2008: Charles Xavier, age twenty-five, is laid off by the New York Times after two years and two months of employment.

December, 2008: Charles Xavier, age twenty-five, has been unemployed for eight months and has started drinking a bit more than he should.

January, 2009: Charles Xavier turns twenty -six, resolves to stop drinking, and starts a blog.

March, 2009: Charles Xavier, age twenty-six, gets an email that begins, “My name is Erik Lehnsherr, and I run a newspaper.”

April, 2009: Charles Xavier packs his entire studio apartment into six boxes and spends the last of his savings on a plane ticket.

September, 2010: Charles Xavier, age twenty-seven, is promoted from reporter to managing editor because, in Erik’s words, “You’re the only person on staff who doesn’t hate everyone else on staff. Also, you’re talented.”

January, 2011: Charles Xavier turns twenty-eight, buys a pre-owned car, and realizes that he is in love with Erik Lehnsherr.

June, 2011: Charles Xavier, age twenty-eight, is knocked unconscious by a stray tree branch thrown by a psychotic meth addict. He wakes up several hours later in the hospital with the worst headache of his life.

-

“Ow, _god_ ,” are Charles’ first words when he wakes up. His next ones are, “Erik, what are you doing here?”

“Oh, just, you know,” Erik shrugs, blurry in his seat beside Charles’ bed, “Making sure you don’t die.”

“I think they have doctors for that, Erik,” Charles says, teasing, trying to keep the warm fuzzies swelling in his stomach from displaying themselves too prominently on his face. “I trust you with many things, my friend, but brain surgery is not one of them-”

“Don’t,” Erik says abruptly, and Charles is pretty sure they’re both equally surprised by it.

“Sorry,” Erik mutters, and as Charles’ vision clears he sees the dark circles, the worry etched into Erik’s face. “I was just really…well, Christ.” He clears his throat, visibly shoves aside the anxiety. “What the fuck was I supposed to do with a brain-dead managing editor?”

“You’ve managed perfectly well for the past nine months,” Charles jokes, and even Erik manages to crack a smile at that. Charles yawns, rubs his eyes, winces, and squints at the room’s one small window.

“What time is—oh my god, did I miss deadline? Did we already go to press? I hadn’t finished with Hank’s story, and, oh _lord_ , who wrote the Banner story—and oh my _god_ , the interns, are the interns alright, Banner didn’t kill them, did he, oh my _lord_ how could we afford the medical insurance and—did someone find my—did I leave my notebook, it had some _brilliant_ quotes, you have no idea, Thor was—but I just, what did I miss-”

“Charles.” Erik cuts him off, a fond sort of look on his face that Charles tries desperately to ignore. He doesn’t quite succeed and is forced to suppress the urge to hide his face under the covers or roll around like an overexcited small child or quite possibly just scream. Erik has always had a rather…unpredictable effect on him.

“Yes, you missed deadline, yes, we have already gone to press, and no, you are not allowed to become hysterical and plead with me to let you keep your job because who the fuck else would I give it to?” Erik sits back, still smiling faintly, as Charles opens his mouth, realizes Erik is _way_ ahead of him, and shuts it again.

“Right,” Charles says faintly, sinking back into his pillows. “So I can just…”

“Relax, yes,” Erik nods. “Armando edited Hank’s story and it was eighty percent intelligible, which is, of course, not nearly as good as you would have made it, but it was printable. The interns survived, unfortunately, and wrote the Banner story, and after I…assisted them, it was actually decent.”

“Did they survive your assistance?” Charles asks with a smile. He knows Erik well enough to understand that “I assisted them” is code for “I shouted at them until they wrote something I liked.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” Erik’s deadpan has always been marvelous, and it’s in full effect right now. Still, after a few moments under the weight of what Charles is rather afraid is his most idiotically lovelorn smile, Erik’s face softens slightly, warm and relieved like Charles has never seen him.

“So, can you stop fussing now?” Erik asks, and Charles can’t help but laugh at that.

“That is an absolutely ridiculous question, my friend,” he says with a wry grin. “You know perfectly well that I’ll never stop fussing. But,” he adds after a moment’s consideration, “It is possible that you’ve persuaded me to fuss a little less.”

“Well,” Erik sighs, heaving himself out of his chair (and Charles’ heart definitely _doesn’t_ plummet, his stomach absolutely _doesn’t_ wrench with an unexpected terror of being left), “I suppose that’s a start.” He heads towards the door, pauses, looks back at Charles and half frowns, half laughs, and full rolls his eyes in exasperation.

“Don’t _look_ at me like that, Jesus Christ, it’s not like I’m leaving you,” Erik says, and Charles feels himself begin to flush because how, exactly, is he looking at him? He’s not entirely sure. “I’m going to get some fucking coffee, try not to dissolve into hysterics and break things while I’m gone or anything.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Charles sniffs, rolling over onto his side and rearranging his pillows huffily. “I shall manage perfectly well without you.”

Erik snorts and mutters something that sounds quite a bit like _yeah because you do that so often_ , but before Charles can reply that actually he _does_ , thank you very much, Erik opens the door and disappears out into the hallway.

When he comes back fifteen minutes later, Charles squeezes his eyes closed and pretends to be asleep. Over the thumping of his heart, he listens to Erik’s footsteps falter as they enter the room, and then the short, low chuckle that gusts out of him without warning. The footsteps find their way to Charles’ bedside, and then there are fingers ruffling his hair quickly, gently, almost affectionately, and underneath the sheets he has to dig his nails into his palms to keep from leaning up into the touch like a pleased cat. The fingers leave his hair, and then there’s a tortured creak as Erik settles into the chair parked beside Charles’ bed.

Rolling over, Charles smothers a sigh in his pillow and wonders why the _hell_ Erik is still here. Surely there’s no reason for him to sit here and watch Charles sleep. That is, unless…but no. Erik wouldn’t—Erik doesn’t. He just doesn’t. But Charles…Charles _does_ , and that’s the problem. Pressing his face deeper into his pillow, he has to stifle the urge to scream in frustration. Sometimes he really _hates_ being gay.

-

He’s known for quite a while, actually. That he’s gay, that is—not that he’s in love with his boss. To be perfectly honest, he took the whole gay thing a lot better than the whole being in love with his boss thing. In some perverse way, it was almost easier to accept. Then again, a lot of things are pretty easy to accept when you’re twelve, and for Charles, being gay was one of them.

It certainly explained a lot of things: why he couldn’t help staring at that despicably tan Argentinean pool boy that one summer, why _Pride and Prejudice_ was his favorite book when he was ten, why he always got along better with the girls in his class.

That last, at least, has never really changed (he still loves _Pride and Prejudice_ , but he and Mr. Darcy had a bit of a falling out in junior year English when he fell madly in love with Jay Gatsby) ; strangely enough, he’s actually become the most dreadful flirt. He flirts with waitresses, grocery store clerks, pretty girls in bars, ugly girls in bars, and even the occasional source. And, okay, it’s ridiculous, but he’s damn good at it, because it’s _safe_ flirting, with no danger of any real attraction or commitment or even interaction aside from the occasional sweet remark or cheeky smile.

And women understand that, whether they know it consciously or not. Charles is well aware that he’s cute in a blue-eyed, little-boy, scuffed-knees, I-want-to-take-you-home-and-feed-you-animal-crackers-and-soup sort of way. He’s become resigned to the fact that he’s just not the sort of person that most people want to do dirty things to. Not most women, anyway. And so he can flirt with them, charm them, compliment their eyes or their hair and make them blush and smile like schoolgirls, but it doesn’t _mean_ anything. They end up going home with the scruffy, plaid-shirted lumberjack type sitting at the end of the bar, and he goes home alone to watch Toddlers in Tiaras and wish desperately that he weren’t in love with a straight guy.

In his more paranoid moments, Charles manages to convince himself that everyone in the office knows that he’s gay. Not that he minds, exactly, it’s just…well, this isn’t exactly New York City, and you never know how people will react. But once he’s returned to comparative sanity, he’s not really so sure. He’s pretty sure that Moira’s got his number; she’s invited him to more than one of her girls’ nights out with her friends, and he’s almost positive that’s not flirting (he’s politely declined each invitation, though, just to be sure).

As for Logan…well, he’s pretty sure the guy wouldn’t give a flying fuck if he did know, but he’s so wrapped up in his weird issues with Scott that he probably doesn’t have the time or energy to devote to other people’s homosexuality problems. Emma is, well, Emma, so it’s pretty hard to tell, and she’s such a lady that Charles is pretty sure that she’d _never_ mention it. Azazel, as has been previously stated, hates everyone too much to pay attention, and Hank and Sean are so bloody clueless that they make Angel look like Sherlock Holmes, and she never even looks up from her phone. As for the interns, well…Charles sometimes thinks he catches Armando giving him odd looks, but to be honest, sometimes people just give him odd looks. Though to be fair, Armando is probably the most perceptive of all of the children, but Charles doesn’t worry too much.

And then there’s Erik. Jesus Christ, Erik. Erik is an enigma at best, maddeningly encouraging at worst, and about as emotionally responsive as a brick wall the rest of the time. And that’s a bit of problem for Charles, because Charles…Charles _likes_ emotions, as horrible and clichéd and stereotypical as that is. He thinks they’re complicated and interesting and important, and most of the time it seems like Erik just doesn’t have them. Even _Azazel_ displays emotions—well, okay, just one emotion, and yes, it’s hatred, but at least that counts.

Erik is mostly just sort of flat. Dull. Of course, if sarcasm counted as an emotion, he’d be a PMSing teenage girl 365 days a year, but sarcasm just—well, it just doesn’t count. There are those rare moments of rage, but even that is sort of flat, directed, purposeful. Not that it’s not effective, because it absolutely is; one glare from Erik is enough to silence Hank when he’s rambling about science things that no one else understands, to make Emma stop painting her nails and actually write a story for once, even to make the Summers brothers, on occasion, stop fighting. But that’s rage for a _purpose_ , not just rage for rage’s sake. Erik doesn’t feel things just to feel them; everything is there to be manipulated, channeled, melted down and twisted around into a shape that he likes, into a shape that works for him.

Charles worries about Erik sometimes—well, okay, that’s an understatement. He worries about Erik a _lot_ , for a ridiculous array of reasons. It’s either that he’s drinking too much or eating too little, talking too little or frowning too much, working too much or sleeping too little. Charles just _worries_ ; he’s a managing editor, it’s practically in his contract. And every staff member has his or her own little reasons to make Charles worry: Logan drinks more than any human being should be able to survive, Scott’s anal retentiveness (and, unfortunately, general assholery) has reaching worrying levels, Emma lives in a glittering diamond shell that hardly anyone can penetrate, Moira gets to work before everyone else and stays long after they’ve all left, Azazel, as has been previously mentioned, hates everyone, Hank doesn’t actually appear capable of speaking a language that other humans are capable of understanding, Sean has all the social skills of a newt, Alex is…well, Alex, and his main talents appear to be antagonizing his brother and breaking things, Armando spends _way_ too much time around Alex and is slowly being corrupted, Angel’s thumbs are going to fall off one of these days, and he’s not entirely sure that he’s ever heard Janos say more than three words at a time.

Still, out of all that neurosis, social impairment, and just plain craziness, Erik takes the fucking cake. The only comforting thing is…well, it’s actually not all that comforting, but the fact is that Erik actually used to be worse.

-

Charles’ first day in Amistad began at four o’clock in the afternoon when he stumbled off the bus from Phoenix, looked around the tiny, dusty bus station, and wondered why the hell everything was so _bright_.

“May in Amistad, Mr. Xavier.” Charles turned towards the voice that rang out across the dust mote-filled air and located the station’s only other occupant: a tall, lean man in black sunglasses and a brown leather jacket, his dark hair slicked back and gleaming in the sunlight.

“Ah,” Charles said faintly, attempting a smile and shading his eyes from the sun glaring in through the station’s high, arched windows. “Mr. Lehnsherr, I presume?”

“Erik, please.” The approaching man extended his hand; the smile behind it was wide and shark-like. The hand that Charles shook was warm and calloused, its grip worryingly firm. This, Charles thought, was the kind of man who could—and quite possibly would—break your fingers without a thought. “The trip wasn’t too bad, I hope?”

“Well…” Charles paused, thinking back to the the nauseating five-AM bus ride to LaGuardia, the two-hour layover in Dallas, the screaming child kicking his seat all the way to Phoenix, and then the border-bound Greyhound filled with the unimaginable stink of twenty-odd sweaty people and what may have been two goats (Charles just tried his hardest not to look around him or breathe through his nose more than he had to). “I got here in the end, didn’t I?”

Erik tipped his head back and laughed, and Charles did his best not to be surprised by the vast cavern of his mouth, by the impossible long line of his throat.

“That’s the spirit,” he chuckled. “These your only bags?”

“I shipped the rest of my things,” Charles explained, hefting his messenger bag on one shoulder and grabbing a hold of his rolling suitcase with the opposite hand. “They claimed that they’d arrive sometime next week, but, well…I haven’t the faintest idea where I’m going to live, anyway, so I suppose it doesn’t matter if they’re late.”

“Let me,” Erik said, reaching for the suitcase, and it turned out to be less of a question and more of an order; before Charles knew what was happening, the handle had been jerked out of his hand and the suitcase was being wheeled away from him. Embarrassingly, he had to jog to catch up with Erik’s long strides.

“Is it, uh, is it always this hot in May?” Charles asked, tugging ineffectively at his collar. Even inside the station it must have been nearing eighty, and his wooly sweater vest was starting to feel like less and less of a good idea.

Erik raised an eyebrow at him. “Hot?” It was just then that they pushed open the station doors and stepped out into the direct sunlight, and _oh_.

Technically, Charles had been hot before. Westchester sometimes reached the lower nineties in the summer, and New York City could be dead awful when it was August and humid and the sole air conditioning unit in his cramped flat was on the blink again. But this…this was a different kind of hot. This was a dry, unforgiving, hairdryer heat that hit you like a baseball bat and left you sweating and dizzy within minutes. This heat sucked all the moisture out of you because it had none, made your hair lie flat and limp against your skull, made your very _eyeballs_ feel like they’d been popped out of their sockets and rolled around in sand.

“Mr. Xavier, you don’t know what hot means,” Erik chuckled. “In another month it will be ten degrees warmer and you will never go outside ever again.

“Oh, and,” he added as an afterthought, glancing over his shoulder at Charles standing, stunned, in the middle of the baking parking lot, “Welcome to Amistad.”

-

On his first day at the Amistad Avenger, Charles got shooting lessons.

“But,” he said, voice gone a bit feeble under the stare of a very large, very hairy man who had introduced himself as _James Logan but that’s Logan to you, Little Lord Fauntleroy_ , “But, look, not that I don’t, you know, appreciate the offer and everything, but, ah, I don’t exactly _do_ guns.”

“Wasn’t an offer,” Logan grunted, banging open his desk drawer, pulling out a handgun, and tossing it to Charles, who did his utmost not to drop it. “C’mon, pretty boy. Firing range is this way.”

Shooting lessons, unsurprisingly, proved to be a complete failure. The kick on the gun caught Charles by surprise every time, and Logan became increasingly irritated as his shots went increasingly wide. It turned out that encouragement along the lines of, “This isn’t tea with Her fucking Majesty, buddy, actually pull the goddamn trigger, will ya?” did not improve his aim, and they eventually agreed that Charles would never be a Marine sniper and it was too hot for this shit, anyway.

Later that day, Charles learned that Logan was the Avenger’s crime correspondent. Funnily enough, he wasn’t the least bit surprised.

-

On the first day of his third week at the Avenger, Charles was kidnapped.

This is not, of course, technically true. What actually happened was this: he walked into the office, turned to go sit down at his cubicle, and found himself face-to-chin with Scott Summers, the perpetually irritated copy editor who, as far as Charles could tell, was basically paid to wear sunglasses all the time and annoy the fuck out of Logan.

“Xavier,” Summers said abruptly, grabbing Charles by the shoulder of his jumper and dragging him off across the newsroom. “Fresh meat. C’mon.”

“I—er, what?” Charles stammered, the sharp leather brogues he wore to work in those days (they later had an extremely tragic accident involving bleach and sledgehammers, and he’s stuck to boots and canvas sneakers ever since) skidding across the carpeted floor. “Sorry, what exactly is-”

“Xavier.” Charles looked up to see Logan, who was managing to look both out of place and entirely at home in what was generally known as the “copy cave” but technically known as “Scott’s desk” (and later known to Charles as “oh, god, Scott, your desk, I’m pretty sure that’s a fire hazard, can you please—what? No? O-okay, sorry, my mistake for trying to comply with health and safety codes”). Even Logan was dwarfed by the towering stacks of files, loose papers, and old copies of the Avenger that rose up from the plastic desktop like rock formations in the desert. Scott was, unsurprisingly, fiercely protective of the whole damn mess, claiming that he actually had an exceedingly delicate filing system (which, Charles imagined, involved dating various documents based on how many layers of strata they were buried underneath, sort of like fossils).

“Um, hi,” Charles said, straightening his sweater and attempting to shove his hair back from where it had been knocked into his eyes by the morning’s excitement. “Sorry, so, what exactly am I doing here and what does fresh meat-”

“Erik’s disappeared,” Scott said from somewhere behind Charles’ left shoulder, and the faint gasp he emitted was _definitely_ because of the shock of realizing that Scott Summers was standing directly behind him and not because of the sudden gut-twisting terror that exploded in him at the thought of Erik being _gone_. Erik was…well, aside from being one of the more gorgeous people Charles had ever encountered, Erik solicitously protected Charles from the staff’s (or, more accurately, Scott and Logan’s) various hijinks, arguments, and general neuroses. Just the other day, he had swooped in just in time to spare Charles from becoming an unwilling third party to a rather unclear but exceedingly dangerous venture that appeared to involve Scott, Logan, and snakes. Charles wouldn’t survive three days in this place if Erik were gone.

“I-I—what?” Charles swallowed hard, although there was a small portion of his brain muttering darkly that _this better not be another goddamn trick if it’s the bloody snakes again I swear to god I’m legging it out of here as fast as I can go._

“Again,” Logan added with a grim smile. Charles was not exactly sure how to interpret this, so he just settled for the quizzical look that Moira the office manager had deemed his ‘confused puppy face.’

“It happens periodically,” Scott added, as if Charles did not fully grasp the meaning of ‘again.’ His sense of self-preservation, however, prevented him from voicing this fact, as he was particularly fond of his fingers and toes and had no intention of losing them any time soon.

“I…see,” he said instead, in a tone of voice that conveyed pretty clearly that he did not.

“You know what a bender is, Cream and Crumpets?” Logan asked. His British-stereotype nicknames for Charles were getting progressively more and more offensive, but the aforementioned sense of self-preservation had thus far prevented him from objecting. Besides, with Logan he didn’t have to worry about his fingers and toes; with Logan, it was his testicles, which, despite their unfortunate inactivity as of late, proved an even more important consideration.

“I—yes. Yes, I know what a bender is.”

“Good,” Scott said. “Good, because, see, our boss has gone on one.”

“Does it all the fuckin’ time,” Logan chimed in, shaking his head (whether in admiration or exasperation, Charles wasn’t sure).

“And, see, what he does on these particular benders of his,” Scott continued (and in his voice Charles could just _hear_ the dirty look he was shooting at Logan), “Is get insanely, ridiculously, shit-faced drunk—and then get on a plane.”

“Or a bus,” Logan added. “He’s done that, too. Trains, too, when he can find ‘em. Or sometimes he just walks.”

“Mostly planes, though,” Scott said. “Planes are his preferred mode of transportation.”

“C’mon, kid, pick your fuckin’ jaw up off the floor, would you?” Logan snapped, and it took Charles a moment to realize that he should probably close his mouth now. “Dude’s got some deep-seated emotional issues about escaping or some shit like that, I don’t fuckin’ know. Doesn’t fuckin’ matter, anyway, not to you. Your job is to get him back.”

“Get him back,” Charles repeated faintly, feeling his heart sink slowly towards his ankles. “How, exactly, am I supposed to—I mean, I assume there’s some sort of procedure for this? Since he does it so often and all?”

“Oh, yes,” Logan nodded, and there was something about the grin spreading across his face that made Charles distinctly nervous. “Moira will book him a flight back here and email him the tickets. That shit ain’t hard. Your job is figuring out where he is.”

“And I do that how, exactly?” Charles was sort of afraid that he already knew the answer, but there was something horribly final about hearing Scott speak the dreaded words:

“You call him.”

-

“H-hello? Erik?”

“Whatthe—who the fuck—what fuckin’ time is it, Jesus—who the fuck _is_ this?”

“It’s Charles,” Charles said meekly, clutching his office phone so tightly that he might actually leave nail marks in the plastic.

“Charles,” Erik repeated, sounding dubious. “Who the fuck is—oh, _Charles_ , right, yeah, you, okay. What do you want, Charles?”

“Er.” Charles paused, rather unsure of how to interpret “oh, _Charles_.” What did he mean, _Charles_? Was that some kind of bad sign? Did Erik hate him? At least, Charles thought dryly, he didn’t say, “Oh, Cream and _Crumpets_ ,” so he supposed that was a good sign.

“Uh, where exactly are you, Erik?”

“Um.” There was a pause punctuated by a few scratchy bits of static, during which Charles tried desperately not to imagine the receiver rubbing against Erik’s unshaven jaw. “Looks like…an airport?”

“An airport,” Charles repeated, nodding. Beside him, Scott let out a sigh of what might just have been relief, while on his other side Logan shook his head and chuckled something along the lines of _crazy fuckin’ bastard_. “Okay. Okay, that’s good. Now, Erik, I’m going to need you to figure out _which_ airport it is that you’re in, alright?”

“Yeah, okay,” Erik grunted. There was another pause, more static, and then Erik returned to say, “Looks like…California.”

“California. Okay.” Charles blew out a long breath and tried to think of the best way to phrase his next question. “Where, exactly, in California, do you think?”

“I don’t fucking know,” Erik snapped, and Charles couldn’t stop himself from physically recoiling from his phone. “They don’t exactly slap the name of the fucking airport all over the inside of it, do they?”

“Okay, okay,” Charles said hastily, trying not to panic. “Look, okay, um…” He glanced helplessly at Scott, who just shrugged and mouthed _fresh meat_.

“Okay, um, Erik,” Charles said, chewing his lower lip anxiously, “I know it may be hard, but could you possibly find a phone booth?”

“A phone booth?” Erik’s incredulous tone perfectly matched the looks both Scott and Logan were giving Charles, who did his best to ignore them.

“Yes, a phone booth,” he said, doing his best to sound like he had any fucking clue what he was doing. “Just trust me.”

“Jesus Christ,” Erik muttered. “Okay, hang on.”

After a few moments of breathless silence, Erik’s gruff voice said, “Alright, found one. Now what?”

“If you could look inside the phone book, please,” Charles said carefully, hardly daring to believe that this was actually working, “And tell me the first area code that you see?”

“Xavier, you’re a fucking genius,” Erik said just as Charles was practically slammed facedown onto his desk by one of Logan’s enormous hands clapping him on the shoulder.

“Don’t mention it,” Charles managed weakly, hoping desperately that his eyes weren’t watering from the pain. “Let’s, ah—let’s just get you home safely.”

-

When Erik got back the next day, hollow-eyed and silent, he didn’t look Charles in the eye all morning. Charles, however, was not having any of that, and successfully managed to corner his boss in the break room sometime around lunch.

“Are you, er, feeling alright?” he asked tentatively, not quite knowing how to phrase the question without it sounding horrendously clichéd and obvious (he’d been running through potential conversations all morning, but all his mental scenarios either ended in screaming fistfights or heartfelt discussions of feelings, neither of which seemed particularly likely).

“Lovely, yes,” Erik said flatly, and this, this was exactly what Charles had been afraid of. Years of reporting had taught him that if you ask obvious questions, you’re going to get obvious answers. So, he went off script.

“Look, I know that-” He paused, unsure of how to continue, before plunging on, “It looks like everything is…not exactly okay with you, and, and I know you only just hired me and I really don’t know anything about you and you don’t know anything about me but I just wanted to say that, you know, if you ever need someone to talk to, and _god_ this is so cliché and I’m sorry but you should just know that, um, I’m here.”

“I was under the impression that I had hired a reporter,” Erik said after a moment’s pause, eyes narrowed and dark and guarded. “Not a shrink. What a dreadful mistake I have made.”

He turned to leave the room, but, in a moment of insanity, Charles stepped in front of him and put a staying hand on his forearm.

“Please, Erik,” he said quietly, trying to ignore the secondhand heat trickling into his fingers, the electric tingle of skin against skin, “I’m not—look, I really don’t want to pry, and I apologize if I came off that way. You just…well, sometimes it’s good to know that there’s someone willing to listen. If you want to talk. Or not. I’m here either way.”

“Right,” Erik said curtly, his eyes lingering on Charles’ fingers curled over his forearm. “Look, I’ve—I’ve got work to do, so if you could just…”

“Of course,” Charles nodded, daring to give Erik’s arm a quick squeeze before releasing him. It took all his strength to keep from deflating in disappointment as Erik hurried to the door, brows furrowed at the floor like it had done him some grievous injury.

Charles had already turned to make himself a cup of tea and berate himself for his failure when Erik’s voice rang out across the tiny room, surprising him.

“Charles.” He turned, blinking, to find Erik hovering in the doorway, looking almost…well, not quite uncertain, but perhaps a bit out of his depth.

“Hm?”

“Thank you,” Erik said abruptly, as though the words had been forced out of him. “For bringing me back.”

“Of course,” Charles said, frowning faintly. “What else could I have done?”

For one long, strange moment Erik fixed him with an intense, calculating stare. By some superhuman effort of self-control, Charles managed to keep himself from squirming like a bug under a microscope, but it was a close-run thing. Everything was perfectly crisp and silent, as if life outside of this tiny, dull break room had ground to a complete halt and was holding its breath to see what would happen next.

Then, the moment passed and Erik turned away, shaking his head and muttering something like _Jesus fucking Christ_.

To this day, Charles has never understood what he meant by that.

-

Two weeks after what Charles mentally termed ‘the California Incident,’ he got his first midnight call.

Well, technically it was closer to one in the morning, but the point is that he was fast asleep when his doorbell rang. Yawning, he rolled over to peer blearily at his alarm clock, which read—one? It couldn’t _possibly_ be one. How on earth had he managed to sleep in so late? _Shit._ No wonder his doorbell was ringing; the office had probably sent someone to check on him and make sure he hadn’t died in his sleep or made a run for Mexico.

“Be there in a moment,” he called, shoving his sheets away and rolling gracelessly out of bed. Mentally cursing his blasted alarm clock for failing him after just two months of ownership, he pulled a tee shirt on over his head and stumbled blindly through his darkened apartment (and had he drawn the blinds quite so tightly yesterday? He didn’t remember, but stranger things had happened).

After practically running face-first into his front door, he fumbled ineffectively with the lock for a moment or two before groping for the doorknob and pulling the door open. He was greeted by the blinding backlight of the landing outside and Erik’s supremely unamused face.

“Hi,” Charles said breathlessly, “Look, I’m really, _really_ sorry, my alarm must be broken or something but I _never_ sleep this late normally, I’ve just been a bit exhausted lately but I promise that this will never happen again, honestly-” He cut himself off as Erik’s brows furrowed, and then, through the sleep-haze and sun-spots from the sudden brightness, he took in his boss’s sleep-ruffled hair, rumpled clothes, and heavily shadowed eyes.

“Ah,” he said faintly, feeling a hot flush rise into his cheeks. “It’s…”

“One AM, Charles, yes,” Erik finished for him, fiddling restlessly with his keychain with one hand. “Well done.”

“Sorry, so,” Charles began slowly, hoping desperately that he didn’t sound as thick as he felt, “If it’s not one in the afternoon and I haven’t slept through half the work day, then…what, exactly, are you doing at my apartment?”

“We just got a call from the sheriff’s office. There’s a high-speed chase downtown that has the potential to turn into a pretty epic shit storm, and we need someone there. Seeing as you’re fresh meat, it’s my job to escort you in your first midnight call and make sure you don’t get yourself killed.”

“O…kay,” Charles said slowly, trying not to blink too rapidly in the face of all this new information. “But how am I…I haven’t got a car, I don't really think that the bus runs at this hour-”

“I’ve got my bike.” Dangling his keys from one finger, Erik jingled them loudly. “You can have the helmet.”

“Right then.” Charles nodded, swallowing hard. “Um…let’s go, then.”

There was a pause, and Charles must have still been half asleep because he could swear that he saw one corner of Erik’s mouth lift in a faint, dry smile.

“This may just be me, Charles,” he said finally, “But I generally wear pants when I go out reporting.”

“I…” Charles’s mouth opened and closed as his brain sparked and sputtered, trying to find the right words through the rising tide of embarrassment. “I…will be right back.”

And, okay, it was probably pretty rude of him to slam the door in Erik’s face, but he was too busy dashing across his apartment and into his bedroom to really care. He yanked on the first pair of pants he tripped over (which, of course, just _had_ to be the slightly ratty, slightly too-tight jeans he only wore around the house when he was too exhausted to put on his grown-up clothes), shoved his feet into a pair of sneakers, and paused for a moment to try and catch his breath.

“Jesus Christ,” he panted, attempting blindly to smooth down his bedhead and will the flush out of his cheeks. “Come on, Charles, pull yourself together. You can do this. Jesus.”

“Jesus,” he repeated faintly, casting one last look around his darkened bedroom before racing back towards the front door. On the way there, he grabbed a notebook and pen off his desk and a sweatshirt off the back of his chair. The notebook and pen went into the pockets of the sweatshirt, which got shoved onto his arms and shoulders and left unzipped, displaying his thin, rumpled Columbia tee shirt to the world.

Or, as it were, to Erik, whose eyes went slightly wide when Charles opened the front door and presented himself for duty.

“What is it?” Charles asked, giving his mussed hair another self-conscious pat. “Did I forget some other vital article of clothing?”

“No,” Erik said, a hint of a laugh dancing in his dark eyes. “I just didn’t think you did casual. Kind of boggles the mind, to be frank.”

“What does?”

“Seeing you in clothes that my grandfather wouldn’t wear.” At that, Erik actually did laugh, a short, low chuckle that was altogether _too_ lovely to hear. “Come on, Grandpa, my motorbike awaits.”

“I’ve never ridden one of them before,” Charles told Erik’s back as he followed him down the narrow stairs that led to the ground floor. He was, for all his anxieties, generally pretty fearless when it came to his job, but there was something about large metal objects moving at high speeds that made his stomach turn.  “Motorcycles, I mean.”

“Good thing you’re not driving, then,” Erik’s gruff reply floated up to him. “Just put on the helmet and hold on tight, you should be fine.”

“What about you?” Charles asked as they reached the ground floor, a sort of low-ceilinged, grubby lobby with a battered front desk that was never, ever manned. “Don’t you need a helmet?”

“Me?” Erik said over his shoulder as he pushed the apartment building’s heavy front door open and stepped out into the biting desert night. “Don’t worry about me. You just hold on.”

“Hold on,” Charles repeated faintly, trailing after Erik as he strode across the parking lot to where he’d parked his bike. “Right.”

His brain barely had time to raise objections to holding onto his very attractive, very straight boss before the aforementioned boss was tossing a sleek, matte black helmet into Charles’ tremulous hands. The helmet was still faintly warm when he slipped it onto his head, but he was distracted from this fact by the rather more pressing fact that he could no longer see.

“Wha-” he said faintly, staggering sideways and scrabbling ineffectively at the plastic covering his face.

There was a faint huff of laughter from Erik’s direction, and then steadying hands landed on the helmet and stopped Charles’ stumbling. Fingers scraped faintly against the exterior of the helmet, and then the blackness lifted to reveal Erik’s rather amused face.

“Next time,” Erik’s muffled voice told him, “It would be a good idea if you lifted the sun visor before you put the helmet on.”

“How was I supposed to know that?” Charles demanded indignantly, following Erik over to the bike. “I didn’t know you’d got a bloody _sun visor_ on this thing, did I?”

“Well, now you do,” Erik shrugged, slinging one leg over his bike, gripping the handlebars, and managing to look like James Dean, Marlon Brando, and Steve McQueen all rolled into one smirking, incredibly dangerous package. “Come on, then.”

“Right.” Charles swallowed hard, crept up to the bike like it was some sort of wild animal, and attempted to swing his leg over it. The effect, of course, was not nearly as impressive as Erik’s; he lost his balance, staggered sideways, and plopped onto the back of the bike in a decidedly undignified way.

“Well done,” Erik said, and before Charles could decide whether or not he was being made fun of, Erik had turned the key in the ignition and was revving the engine. With a gasp, Charles wrapped his arms around Erik’s waist and clung to it for dear life as the bike leapt to life and roared out of the parking lot at top speed.

“Jesus Christ,” Charles breathed, but his words were torn out of his mouth and flung backwards down the road by the whipping wind.

-

To be perfectly honest, Charles doesn’t remember many of the details of that night. The shit storm turned out to be a shootout between Sheriff Thor and a group of Mexican gang members who had holed up in an apartment complex across town. Charles doesn’t recall how many there were, what gang they were in, or how long the shooting lasted; what he does remember is the feel of Erik’s back against his chest, the dusky smell of leather, the wind yanking at his hair and numbing his nose.

He remembers standing with his back pressed against a brick wall, bullets whizzing over his head and Erik gasping for breath by his side. They’d just sprinted across the street, around the parked squad cars, and through the apartment building’s dead, scrubby yard. From what felt like miles away, Deputy Barton was screaming at them to _get the fuck out of there what the fuck are you doing I’m not having any goddamn reporters getting killed in here for fuck’s sake_.

But most of all, what he remembers is catching his breath, meeting Erik’s eyes, and bursting into hysterical laughter because it was two in the morning, they were caught in the middle of a firefight, and he was dressed like a fucking _frat boy_. The best part, though, was that Erik laughed, too. 


	3. Chapter 3

After Charles is discharged from the hospital (exhausted, headachey, head still bandaged), Erik makes him take two days off.

“But I-” Charles says, but Erik just shakes his head and folds his arms and, shit, he’s got that look that says that he’s not backing down on this, will never back down on this, so Charles might as well just give up now.

“Home, Charles,” Erik orders brusquely, “Now. And stay there. I mean it.”

“But two days seems awfully excessive,” Charles protests, fingers dancing anxiously over the edges and folds of the bandage on his head. “Really, I’ll just sleep in tomorrow and come in to work around noon, it’ll be-”

“I’m not having you brain damaged, Charles,” Erik snaps. “You show up at the office tomorrow and I’m sending you back home _and_ making you edit all the interns’ stories for two weeks. You got that?”

“I…” Charles trails off, sighs, and gives in. “Fine, you crafty bastard. But you’ll have to edit the interns while I’m gone.”

“I can handle that,” Erik says with surprising mildness as they make their way out of the hospital. But when Charles glances up curiously, Erik’s face is completely unreadable.

-

The next morning, Charles sleeps in until eleven. He wakes up with a jolt and sits bolt upright in bed, breathless, when he catches sight of his alarm clock. He’s just about to leap out of bed and make a break for the bathroom when he feels the sickening weight of the bandages on his head and remembers his forced vacation.

With a groan, he slumps back against his pillows, takes a deep breath, and…realizes that he has no idea what to do. He spends so much time working that he hardly knows what to do with himself when he has free time and enough energy to actually enjoy it. After a moment’s contemplation, he decides that tea is the solution and gets up to make some.

While he’s waiting for the kettle to whistle, he taps his bare toes against the chilly floor of his kitchen and tries desperately to think of things with which to fill his day. He’s got a few books he’s never gotten around to finishing, a couple movies waiting in similar half-watched dejection for him to find the time to finish them, and then there’s always cleaning. Maybe, just maybe, he’ll make it through one day of leisure.

-

He spends the short remainder of the morning puttering about the apartment, sipping his tea and seeing to the various things he’s been neglecting lately. He waters his houseplants (a sad, halfway replacement for the cat he promised himself he’d adopt but never actually got around to), scoops the clothes littering forty percent of all the flat surfaces in the apartment into a laundry basket, runs his dishwasher, and sorts his mail.

With all that accomplished (and his watch barely reading noon), he finds himself once more at a loss for what to do. Half-heartedly, he drifts towards the bedroom with the vague intention of putting on some actual clothes other than a pair of boxers and a Strand bookstore tank top with a particularly nasty bleach stain, but stops in his tracks when he comes to the realization that he doesn’t actually have to _go_ anywhere today and therefore has no need of grown-up clothes.

Instead, he plops himself down at his desk and opens up his laptop. Chin propped on one hand, he uses the other to pull up the Facebook account that his sister bullied him into creating. As usual, his only notifications are from the aforementioned sister, who, as far as he can tell, has gotten a photography job in New York City that leaves her with entirely too much free time to play Farmville. After casting a perfunctory glance down his news feed (consisting of, shockingly, Raven’s statuses and bloody Farmville notifications and a few unflattering photos posted by old friends from university), he gives social networking up for a lost cause and opens his email.

What catches his eye first is a new message from Moira. The subject line reads, “Get Better!” but what is more troubling is the tiny paperclip that indicates an attachment. Some horrible e-card of some sort, he thinks dully, and opens the email, which contains nothing but a worryingly cryptic _open the attachment :)_

Moira, he thinks, really needs to get over emoticons, but he does as she says anyway.

After a second of loading, a window pops up and he is treated to a full-screen close-up of Moira’s face.

 _“Hi, Charles!”_ Her voice crackles out of his laptop speakers, and he chuckles as she waves cheerfully.

_“Since you’re out of the office and everything, aaand because I basically have nothing better to do, I thought I’d make you a get well soon video and show you how much everyone in the office misses you!”_

Another laugh, this one a bit drier, finds its way out of his mouth as he watches the camera wobble and spin sickeningly as Moira picks it up. “Yeah, good luck with that,” he mutters, but can’t help but smile as the camera makes its shaky way through the newsroom to Logan’s cubicle.

 _“I’m workin’ here,”_ the crime correspondent says without looking up from his computer, _“The fuck do you want?”_

Moira’s indistinct voice says something about _video_ and _get well_ and _Charles_ , and Logan turns around with a distinctly unimpressed expression.

_“My message for Charles? My message for Charles is get your lazy, injured ass back here, Oscar Wilde. Don’t pull a fuckin’ World War Two and let the Americans do all the work while you sit back and drink your fuckin’ tea, alright? Hurry up and get better and shit.”_

_“Okay, then,”_ Moira says faintly, and then the camera is wobbling away from Logan and down a few cubicles to Hank’s impeccably organized desk.

 _“A message for Charles?”_ Hank blinks slowly into the camera like a bat dazed by sunlight. _“Wait, Charles is…oh,_ right _, that thing with Banner and the tree branch and—okay, okay. Um…well, feel better, Charles…drink lots of fluids and don’t forget to check your pupils to make sure they’re the same size, just in case you have a concussion. And, uh, put Neosporin on your head injuries to make sure they don’t get infected, and…”_

 _“Thank you, Hank!”_ Moira says brightly, loud enough to cut him off mid-ramble. _“Very sound advice, very good.”_

 _“Oh, um,”_ Hank blinks again, adjusting his glasses with one hand, _“Sure, yeah. You’re welcome.”_

Charles laughs, shaking his head, as the camera moves across the hall to where Alex is sprawled in a desk chair, wheeling himself around the newsroom by pushing off of various surfaces, skidding across the carpeted floor, and laughing hysterically.

 _“Charles_!” he bellows, spinning himself around to face the camera. _“Yeah, dude, get well and stuff! Not gonna lie, though, that shit with Banner and the tree was pretty epic. Wish I’d gotten that on video, that shit’s Youtube gold, man. But yeah, totally, I hope ya feel better and shi-”_

A faint gasp finds its way out of Charles’ mouth as Alex shoots suddenly sideways, careening off-screen to be replaced by a smirking Scott.

 _“Actually,_ I _want you to get better,”_ Scott says, _“So you can come back here and make this asshole-”_ he jerks his thumb in the direction of his brother, _“-actually do some work.”_

 _“Fuck you, I do work!”_ Alex shouts from off-screen, to which Scott merely rolls his eyes and sneers, _“Unfortunately, shitshow, you weren’t actually hired to annoy the fuck out of everyone. If you were, then you’d be doing a spectacular job, but—what the_ fuck _are you doing?”_

Charles cringes as, with a deafening war cry and a loud clattering of desk chair wheels, Alex careens back onscreen and collides squarely with his brother. The two go flying sideways, chair and all, straight across the camera frame and out the other side. It’s not long before a loud crash blasts out of Charles’ laptop speakers, and then the camera shudders sickeningly as the indistinct voices of the Summers brothers filter in from off-screen.

 _“Oh my god,”_ Moira mutters as Scott reappears, lurching sideways across the screen with a completely enraged, extremely determined Alex clinging to his back and doing his absolute best to box his ears with one hand.

Charles isn’t quite sure what happens next, but what’s obvious is the yell of pain that Scott lets out, flailing his arms madly until his brother goes crashing to the ground and takes him with him. Charles has a sneaking suspicion that Alex may have actually bitten one of Scott’s ears, but the thought is so horrifying that he decides to ignore it in favor of listening to the sounds of violence and profanity issuing from below the screen and doing his best not to laugh.

 _“Guys,”_ Moira says faintly, _“Guys, please, come on, stop thi-”_

She’s cut off by a loud crackle as _something_ collides with the camera, making it jerk violently and then go completely black. Charles stares blankly at the screen for a moment before realizing that he’s hunched over his computer, fingers poised over the keyboard as if he has the power to prevent this complete debacle with a few well-placed keystrokes.  But before he can take the time to properly laugh at himself, the screen flickers back to life, displaying Moira’s up-close, rather sheepish face.

 _“Hi again,”_ she says, smiling nervously. _“Sorry about that. Apparently flying shoes are not so good for cameras, but, thank goodness, Sean got it fixed. Say hello, Sean!”_

The camera turns to the freckly IT kid, who’s currently perched on a desk with his legs swinging high off the floor. Catching sight of the camera, he grins his wide, ridiculous ginger grin and waves frantically.

 _“Hiya, boss!”_ he chirps, grin gone lopsided and corny. _“Hope you get better soon and come back, because, well…guess you saw what happened and all. Even Erik can’t make those nutcases stop fighting, man, it’s crazy. We need you back here, like…asap.”_

 _“Thanks, Sean,”_ Moira says, sounding vaguely irritated—and who can blame her, poor woman; this get well soon video has turned into more of a for Christ’s sake get better and come back because everything is going to shit without you video. Not exactly the message she intended to send, he assumes.

Next, the camera finds Emma and Angel, who are huddled around a computer clicking through what looks awfully like a fashion blog of some sort. Not, of course, that Charles knows much about fashion blogs, but he’s spent enough time reminding the two of them that they actually have stories to write to become an expert in recognizing their various distractions.

 _“Hello, Charles,”_ Emma and Angel chorus in response to Moira’s faint exhortations to _say hello to Charles, ladies_!

 _“Hope you feel better soon and stuff,”_ Angel adds generously, glancing at her phone.

 _“Honestly, sugar,”_ Emma says in her half-Southern drawl, _“No one’s getting any work done here without you. Least of all us.”_

The two of them share a look and giggle, and Moira sighs loudly from behind the camera. The screen goes black for half a second before returning to focus on Azazel and Janos’ faces, side-by-side and completely blank.

That blankness, at least in Azazel’s case, fades into the usual irritation as Moira explains the purpose of the camera she’s shoving in their faces. Neither, however, says a single word despite her repeated pleas to _come on guys, this is for Charles, come on, just say something for god’s sake it’s not like it hurts_.

 _“Come back, Charles,”_ Azazel says finally, voice flat and heavily accented. _“Everyone is even more annoying without you.”_

Janos nods, and Charles can’t help but burst into laughter at the pair of them, sitting there stock-still, blinking at the camera like they’ve never seen one before. Moira—poor, sweet, patient, desperate Moira—knows a lost cause when she sees one and turns the camera off.

The screen flickers back to life once more, this time in what appears to be the break room. Alex is sprawled in a chair—not in his usual arrogant, hyper-macho, look-at-me-I-indicate-my-masculinity-by-spreading-my-legs-as-far-apart-as-possible sprawl, but a kind of slumped, collapsed, I-can’t-actually-sit-up-straight-anymore sprawl. Armando is sitting next to him, pressing a bag of frozen peas (one of the many they keep in the break room freezer for just such occasions) to Alex’s left eye.

 _“Yeah, uh, feel better, boss,”_ Armando says distractedly, _“For fuck’s sake, Alex, stop_ moving _, will you? I’m gonna jam these peas up your goddamn nose, and it won’t be my fault, either.”_

 _“S’not my fault Scott’s a gigantic giraffe dick,”_ Alex mumbles, voice thick around what looks like a split lip. _“Actually, y’know what, scratch that; he’s a teeny tiny squirrel dick, is what he is. A tiny squirrel dick with a giant fucking ego.”_

 _“Squirrels actually have a surprisingly large penis size in comparison with the rest of their body,”_ Armando says absently, shifting the bag of peas slightly.

 _“Fine, alright, fine,”_ Alex snaps, _“He’s a…a…a miniscule fucking, I don’t know, a fucking spider dick. Do spiders even have dicks? If they did, they’d be fucking tiny, wouldn’t they? Just like Scott’s-”_

 _“Summers,”_ a familiar voice rumbles from off-screen, and Charles’ stomach flip-flops even before the camera turns to reveal Erik slouching in the doorway, incredibly long and lean in black slacks and turtleneck, arms folded.

 _“Scott beat me up,”_ Alex says thickly, and Charles has a sudden, horrifying vision of what life must have been like in the Summers household when both boys were growing up.

 _“Scott says you ran him over with Charles’ desk chair,”_ Erik counters flatly, and Charles can’t help but groan because _really_? Why does it always have to be _his_ chair?

 _“Stupid fucker deserved it,”_ Alex mutters, and Erik’s mouth presses into the thin, flat line that clearly says that this shit has got to stop.

 _“If Charles were here, I suppose he’d find some clever and Ghandi-like way of making you two apologize to each other and promise to attempt to get along,”_ Erik says dryly. _“But since he’s not, and letting you two fight it out like pit bulls is not, however amusing it may be, legal, I’m going to tell you to let this shit go, get back to work, and avoid your brother at all costs for the rest of the day. Fuck up again and I’m sending you_ both _home. Got that?”_

 _“Yeah,”_ Alex says faintly from off-screen, and Erik nods curtly.

 _“Muñoz, as deeply as I’m sure Alex appreciates your nursing skills, you need to get back to work, as well,”_ Erik adds, and Armando mumbles something indistinct and flees across the break room and out the door. After a moment’s pause, Alex follows him at a considerably slower pace, head hanging low and feet shuffling.

It’s only then that Erik looks directly into the camera (and Charles tries to ignore how his heart is beating slightly faster, tries to remind himself that it’s _just a video_ and Erik can’t really be looking into his soul through a computer screen) and says, _“What’s this for, then, Moira?”_

 _“Charles,”_ she says simply, and he raises an eyebrow.

_“This is going to be the worst get-well card ever. You do realize that, right?”_

_“Just say something nice,”_ she sighs, and Charles’ heart goes out to darling Moira because she _does_ try, she really does, and it’s not her fault that everyone else in the office is a complete asshole.

 _“Right, uh.”_ Erik nods, clears his throat, smoothes a stray strand of hair back into his part. _“Uh…feel better, I suppose. You’ve probably noticed that everything is going to complete shit without you, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t get brain damage. If you become permanently mentally disabled and leave me to deal with these people by myself, I swear to god, I’ll kill you.”_

 _“Charming, Erik,”_ Moira says dryly, but Erik just shrugs in his usual mysterious way and strides out of the break room. In the distance, he can be heard shouting something that sounds worryingly like _what the fuck did I tell you Summers for fuck’s sake let go of him_ , but by now Moira’s turned the camera back around and has focused it on her own face.

 _“Well, that was pretty much awful,”_ she says with a grim, self-deprecating smile. _“Sorry about that. Guess it was kind of ridiculous of me to dare to hope that we could make a_ normal _get-well video. Oh, well. I hope you understand how much we all miss you, though, because we really do. So get better, Charles. We all hope to see you soon!”_

She waves, the camera wobbles, and then the screen goes black.

After a very long pause, Charles chuckles, shakes his head, and closes his computer.

Fifteen minutes later, when he’s standing in the kitchen making himself some lunch (an omelet with parmesan and spinach, the recipe a mindless leftover from his seemingly endless student days), he realizes that he’s still smiling.

-

When Charles shows up to work the next morning, Erik scowls and says, “I told you two days, Xavier-”

“I saw the video, Erik,” Charles says simply, slipping past him and into the newsroom, “So don't pretend like everything was fine yesterday.”

“It wasn’t…” Erik hesitates as Charles gives him an incredulous look over his shoulder.

“…that bad,” Erik concludes lamely, following Charles on his circuit of the newsroom.

“Mm,” Charles nods absently. “I could tell you had everything under control. Tell me, how _is_ Alex’s eye doing?”

“Charles.” Charles’ breath catches in his throat as Erik’s hand lands on his upper arm, twisting him around to look up into his boss’s thunderous face. “Are you suggesting that I can’t handle this job by myself?”

Charles opens his mouth to reply, meets Erik’s dark, piercing eyes, and shuts his mouth again. After a long, long pause, he says, as gently as possible, “Erik, you know that’s not what I mean. I’m not…dealing with them isn’t your job. That’s what you hired me to do. Your job is making sure we go to press every day with good, intelligent, readable stories, and you do a great—no, you do a _brilliant_ job of that. You’re _not_ so brilliant at making sure the Summerses don’t kill each other, but…well, that’s what you’ve got me for.”

A tense moment goes by as Erik studies Charles’ face intently (and he tries his hardest not to think about how _close_ they are, about Erik’s fingers gripping his arm and Erik’s breath ghosting across the bridge of his nose and Erik staring at him like his eyes could swallow him up). Then, with a curt nod, Erik lets go of him, takes a breath, and turns away abruptly, his long strides carrying him across the room and into his office in a matter of seconds. Charles is left standing in the middle of the room, rubbing his upper arm and trying to ignore the thunder of his heartbeat.

“Mornin’, boss!” Sean says in his usual cheery way as he lopes past with an armful of various boxes and wires. “Good to have you back!”

“Thanks, Sean,” Charles says absently, staring at the closed door to Erik’s office. “It’s good to be back.”

-

It was almost a year ago that Erik promoted him.

He still remembers how it happened: it was a balmy evening in early September, midway through the transition from a scalding summer day to a freezing desert night. The two of them were ensconced in the town’s only Chinese restaurant, a dingy, fluorescent-lit affair whose two main virtues were that it stayed open late and was generally pretty quiet. They went there after work every once and a while to talk and complain—or not, because there were plenty of days when one more word would be too much—over bad, greasy dumplings and thick, sticky noodles.

“S’not bad, this soup,” Charles said through a mouthful of wonton. “If you like drinking dishwater.”

“Lovely,” Erik said with a grimace, picking a limp, gray blob out of his spicy chicken something with his chopsticks and inspecting it closely. “I think this mushroom may actually be a health code violation. Maybe two.”

Charles laughed, and it felt good; it was always nice to have something to complain about other than work, other than Scott and Logan’s last drunken fistfight, other than Emma’s latest horrible, twee story, other than Hank’s incomprehensible copy that took hours to untangle into something that ordinary people could read. Compared to all that, bad Chinese food was a delight to bitch about.

“Y’know,” Charles said after a brief pause, aiming his chopsticks at Erik’s face, “I think Emma’s got a bit of a thing for you.”

“I—what?” Erik blinked at him, looking positively horrified. “Emma? _Me_? That’s absolutely morbid, Charles, don’t be ridiculous.”

“Mmm, I don’t know,” Charles said with a smile, fishing another wonton out of his soup. “I see the looks she gives you. And she’s always calling you _sugar_ and _sweetie_ and those other cute southern pet names of hers…”

“She calls everyone sugar,” Erik said with a frown. “She calls _you_ sugar. She calls _Sean_ sugar, that doesn’t mean-”

“Yes, but she calls you _sugar_. It’s different.” Not, Charles added mentally, that he’d been paying attention. Not that he’d noticed Emma’s covert looks and meaningful _sugars_ because he himself had _a bit of a thing_ for Erik. And it most certainly wasn’t like he’d brought this whole thing up to test the waters, and he most _certainly_ had not felt an enormous swell of relief at Erik’s appalled expression.

“She calls me—what the hell are you on about? What does that even mean?”

“Don’t be dense, Erik,” Charles said with a sigh, setting his chopsticks down and leaning his forearms on the slightly sticky tabletop. “Look, there’s sugar…and then there’s _sugar_. See what I mean?”

Erik looked at him for a moment, brows furrowed as if he was contemplating a particularly difficult calculus problem. Then, with a sigh, he sat back and shook his head.

“No. No, I don’t.” He took a long sip of his beer, still frowning. “Women are very strange, Charles.”

“Mm,” Charles said noncommittally, since _I wouldn’t really know_ did not appear to be an appropriate answer. “Well, suffice to say,” he said instead, “That she’d be quite jealous if she found us eating here together.”

The moment the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them; they went too far, they made it sound like…like they were on some kind of _date_ instead of just grabbing some horrible food after a long day at work.

But instead of leaping up from his chair and running, screaming, out into the parking lot, Erik just chuckled into his beer and nodded.

“Can you imagine Emma at a place like this?” he said with a smirk, jerking his head at the mildew-spotted walls and sullen Mexican waiters. “She’d have an absolute fit.”

“My god, it would be hilarious,” Charles grinned. That grin was quickly replaced by a frown as something occurred to him.

“Erik,” he said slowly, running his thumb around the rim of his teacup, “It’s…it’s not a problem that we spend time together outside of work, is it? I mean, I don’t know what the fraternization rules are, and…” He trailed off in the face of Erik’s incredulous stare.

“Fraternization—for Christ’s sake, Charles, there are no goddamn _fraternization_ rules. Hell, I don’t think anyone would care unless we were actually having sex in the middle of the newsroom.”

It was a very good thing that Charles had just swallowed his mouthful of tea, because otherwise it would have gone all over the table (and, quite possibly, Erik’s face). As it was, he managed to half-choke on air and had to cough violently into his hand a few times. Fortunately, Erik ignored him and went on talking.

“I mean, my god, Logan and Scott go on all-night drinking binges and go out and try to kill coyotes in the desert together or some damn thing, and that actually affects their job performance. Us having Chinese food together after work a couple times a month? No fucking problem.”

“But,” Charles began faintly, cleared his throat, and continued, “But, Scott and Logan are both reporters. It’s not…it’s not weird because, you know, you’re my boss? I mean, _I_ don’t mind, of course, it’s not at all weird for me, but I don’t know what the…”

He shrugged, and Erik nodded slowly. “I see what you mean, but…no, no, there’s no problem.”

Charles sat back, relieved, and then it was Erik’s turn to clear his throat and say, “Though, about that…I’ve been thinking about hiring a managing editor.”

“Hmm?” Charles blinked at him, confused. What did that have to do with anything?

“The staff has just grown so much,” Erik went on thoughtfully, swilling the dregs of his beer around in a slow circle, “Since we hired Sean and, and you, and I was thinking that…I don’t know, having another editor, someone to kind of manage everyone, would make things run a little smoother. Someone to help me edit stories and deal with the staff while I deal with the overall paper and fight with Tony and do all the boring shit I have to do anyway. Just…being able to do that without having to teach Hank how to talk to humans or explain to Scott that sarcasm is really not the best way to get people to improve their copy would be really, really nice.”

He looked up from his beer, a sheepish half-smile on his face, and added, “In case you haven’t noticed, managing people is not exactly my strong suit.”

“Oh, Erik, that’s not-” Charles began earnestly, but Erik shook his head.

“I’m not being modest, Charles. It’s important to understand your own skills, and I know mine very well. I’m good at picking stories and I’m good at editing them. I’m good at arguing with Tony and railroading him into giving me what I want, and I’m good at organizing the paper. I’m not good at people.”

“We-ll,” Charles said thoughtfully, “You’d need someone with editing _and_ interpersonal skills, which don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand. Moira’s good with people, but her writing’s atrocious. Scott’s a good line editor, but with people, he’s…what?” He broke off, perplexed by the odd look Erik was giving him. “What is it?”

“You can’t be serious, Charles,” Erik said slowly, regarding him as if he were some very rare, very dense sort of bird.

“Look, I know Scott’s not a great choice,” Charles said quickly, “But, I mean, it’s pretty much him or Logan, and either way you’re going to have a lot of emotional scarring, so I figured the less violent of two evils-”

“Charles.” Erik was almost smiling now, an astonished look in his eyes. “I want you to do it.”

“G-guh,” was Charles’ first, and rather inelegant, response. It took him a moment to actually form proper words, but when he did, they came out something like: “B-but I…Erik, I’ve barely been here a year and a half, are you—do you—are you _sure_ about this?”

“Do you…not want to do it?” Erik asked, frowning.

“No, no!” Charles said hastily, flustered. He could just _feel_ the heat creeping into his face because oh god he was being promoted and Erik wanted him to be his managing editor and for the love of god why couldn’t he just say yes? “No, are you kidding, I would absolutely love to. I just—I don’t—I—I don’t want to snub anyone, you know?”

“Charles,” Erik chuckled, shaking his head, “Oh, Charles. Don’t worry about _that_ , you idiot. I swear to god, ninety percent of the time you’re much too kind for your own good.”

“I…sorry?” Charles said meekly.

“And that’s why I’m giving you this job, idiot.” Erik rolled his eyes, drained his beer, and went on, “I mean, I’m a bit hesitant to give you up as a reporter, because, quite frankly, you get things out of people that no one else can _and_ you write it into coherent copy, which is a plus. But I can hire more good reporters. I don’t think I could hire a manager anywhere near as good as you.”

“My god, Erik, you’ll make me big-headed, stop,” Charles groaned, hiding his face in his hands.

“It’s true, though,” Erik shrugged. “You motivate people without terrifying the living shit out of them, which is more than I can manage. I need someone like that by my side.”

 _By my side_ , Charles’ brain echoed, his stomach clenching into an almost unbearably tight ball of…something. Something that felt an awful lot like want but might have actually been need. More than anything, though, it was something that he really needed to ignore right now. He swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and said, “I’ll do it. Of course I’ll do it.” _I’d do anything._

“Good,” Erik nodded briskly. “You will, of course, get a raise, though I warn you, it won’t be anything too impressive. And I’ll still technically be your boss, but we’ll basically be on the same level. Partners, you could say.”

“Right, okay,” Charles said faintly, trying to force his brain past the word _partners_ in order to avoid a complete blowout of all circuits. “That, uh…that sounds good.”

“Good,” Erik said, leaning back in his chair with arms folded. “Good. I’ll announce it tomorrow, then.”

Charles took a long, long sip of his tea, doing his best to remember how to breathe.

“Oh, and,” Erik added abruptly, “Please don’t mention the Emma thing ever again. Especially not when I’m eating.”

“Right,” Charles said, trying to hide the enormous grin trying to edge its way onto his face. “Sorry.” He wasn’t, though. Not really.

-

It’s barely two weeks after what’s come to be known as the Banner Incident that it all starts.

It begins, as so many of these things do, with a press conference.

“We need someone to go to City Hall today,” Erik says at the morning’s planning meeting, scrolling through something on his Blackberry. “I got an email saying Rogers is announcing some new crime initiative at noon. Hank?”

“Sorry.” Hank shakes his head, adjusting his glasses as he flips through one of his seemingly infinite notebooks. “I’m doing interviews all this morning for the online schooling story.”

“I’ll go,” Charles shrugs, jotting down a note in one of _his_ seemingly infinite notebooks. He likes notebooks; it’s a reporter thing. “There’s not much else on deck today, is there?”

“No, I think we can spare you.” Erik peers at yet another email on his Blackberry, then nods. “Yeah, okay, you can go. Type up some filler before you head out and we can add in the details after you talk to Rogers.”

“Will do,” Charles says cheerfully, pushing his chair back from the aptly named Round Table. He can’t quite conceal his excitement; it’s been ages since he’s been out on assignment, what with the whole tree-branch fiasco last time. Erik’s admittedly rather mystifying burst of protectiveness has lasted a surprisingly long time, and it seems like he always finds a way to dump the more dangerous (and, naturally, more exciting) assignments onto someone else, leaving Charles to write horrible 300-word stories about local retail figures and sulk as much as possible.

As Charles heads for the conference room door, Scott tosses an arm over the back of his chair and twists around to call, “Try not to get hospitalized this time, yeah?”

“I’ll do my best.” Charles forces a smile; Scott’s said that pretty much every time Charles has left the building since the Banner Incident. Not that that’s been a particularly frequent occurrence, but still. It’s getting really old.

-

By the time he arrives at City Hall, it’s just a few minutes shy of noon and the lobby is full of concerned citizens (ie, people with nothing better to do) and what appears to be the entirety of Amistad’s government (who also have nothing better to do). Charles isn’t surprised by the early start; Mayor Rogers is exceedingly punctual and considerate of the time of others, unlike most asshole mayors. Then again, most asshole mayors have an enormous amount of things to do, whereas Mayor Rogers…well, he’s a wonderful guy, but Amistad is a very small town.

Steve Rogers is a rather interesting case: fire chief turned hometown hero when he joined the US Army, much to the chagrin of everyone who valued a fire company that actually, y’know, put out fires. But two tours of duty in Afghanistan later, Steve returned to what he had planned as a civilian life…and then promptly ran for mayor, throwing out the incumbent corrupt fuck in a landslide. And, quite frankly, how could you _not_ vote for the guy; he’s got blue eyes, thick blond hair, a square jaw, earnest eyebrows (Charles isn’t entirely sure how eyebrows can be earnest, but Steve’s are), and a dazzling movie-star smile.

Standing next to Rogers is chief prosecutor Bucky Barnes, an old buddy of the mayor’s from Afghanistan. He is also, as Logan says, a piece of fucking work, and you know that if James Logan is calling you a piece of work, you are one hell of a piece of work. He’s a good contrast to Steve: dark where Steve is bright, sharp where Steve is soft, narrow where Steve is broad. The two of them are childhood friends, thick as thieves, and, some say, a bit more—needless to say, Bucky’s appointment raised a few eyebrows amongst the concerned citizens of Amistad. But in his usual direct, all-American way, Steve shrugged it off and merely said, “If I trust a guy to have my back when we’re under mortar fire in Khandahari mountains, I definitely trust him to prosecute criminals in my town.” Besides, Barnes is one hell of a good lawyer, all sharp wit and bulldog tenacity, so no one’s complaining.

Looming beside Barnes, eye patch and all, is Judge Odin. And, okay, Charles has covered many a court case, but Judge Odin still scares the living shit out of him. Because, come on, the dude’s got an eye patch _and_ a beard _and_ long, weird, Nordic hair. Charles is pretty sure that the idea of having to face down Judge Odin alone is enough to deter plenty of crime.

And then there’s Odin’s son, the ever-splendid Sheriff Thor, and next to him is the long-suffering Deputy Barton, who is currently checking his phone and looking absolutely overjoyed to be here.

And then, just as it looks like Steve is getting ready to start talking, a side door opens and in come…

“Oh my god,” Charles breathes, yanking out his dinky digital camera and snapping a few poorly-framed photographs. It doesn’t much matter how bad they are, though, because all he really needs is proof that the feds were here.

Leading the pack is Nick Fury, who is probably the second scariest eye-patched person Charles knows. As far as he can tell (because, after all, who can really know with these secretive FBI bastards), Fury’s the head honcho, most likely because he is the most successful at scaring the living bejeesus out of everyone.

Second most successful is a silent fellow known solely as Agent Coulson. Charles has no idea if the guy even has a first name because all he does is _watch_. It’s creepy as hell, not to put too fine a point on it.

Lastly, there’s Agent James Rhodes, commonly known to almost everyone as Rhodey. He’s the least frightening of the FBI triumvirate, mostly because he’s the poor bastard that the other two force to do all the grunt work. Besides, Rhodey’s not a bad sort; he’s really quite genial, even exchanges the occasional pleasantry as he’s sneaking about taking down notes that will later be used to bring down some unfortunate criminal or other.

Charles thinks it’s pretty impressive that Amistad has an entire FBI team solely devoted to it. It certainly says a lot about the town, that’s for sure.

But now, finally, Steve is stepping forwards and clearing his throat, and Charles flips his notebook open to a fresh page as everyone in the room falls silent.

“I’d like to thank you all for coming,” Steve begins with his usual gracious smile, nodding towards the rapt multitude. “Today is a very big day, if I do say so myself. This announcement has been a long time coming, believe me, but now we’re finally ready to unveil Amistad’s new war on crime.”

A murmur goes up from the crowd, but Steve silences them with a wave of his hand.

“Now, I know you’ve heard this all before. An end to crime once and for all, safe streets all over town, the works. And I know you’ve been disappointed before. But this time is different.

“This time-” he raises his voice a little, taking a step towards the audience, “-this time, we’re really going to fix this town once and for all. We’re going to search out the crime in Amistad and we’re going to pull it up by the roots. This time, we’re going after the sources, not the small-time criminals who get caught up in the big guys’ wake. And with the added assistance of our friends in the FBI, we’re taking this town back!”

A roar of approval goes up from the crowd as Steve raises his arms, exhilarated, to the ceiling.

“We’re going to make it safe for children to play outside their houses without fear of being killed or kidnapped!” Another shout of approval, a burst of applause, and he goes on: “We’re going to make it safe for women to walk home at night without fear of being attacked!” A louder roar of agreement.

“We’re going to make sure entrepreneurs can start their businesses without being blackmailed and threatened into paying exorbitant fees to criminals!” A still louder roar, and Charles (who has long since given up on scribbling notes and is just taking the whole thing down on his tape recorder) thinks his ears might be ringing a bit.

“We’re going to make sure our very own newspaper can publish whatever it wants without having to worry about its reporters getting killed!”

And, okay, Charles can’t help himself; even _he_ cheers at that, and he could swear that Steve catches his eye and flashes him an ecstatic grin.

“We’re going to make Amistad safe for _everyone_ , not just the people with guns. And I swear to you all, on my honor as a fireman, a soldier, and your mayor, that by the end of my term, we will cut the crime rate in this town in half!”

Charles practically falls over at the uproar that causes; it feels like the very _building_ is shaking from its tiled roof to the foundations beneath the baking-hot ground. His poor tape recorder is taking an auditory beating, but it is _so_ worth a blown-out microphone to get evidence of the absolute craziness that is going down right now.

Meanwhile, up at the front of the room, Steve has given the appreciative multitudes a quick nod before leading the rest of Amistad’s finest out of the room. As the crowd starts to disperse towards the front double doors, murmuring frantically amongst itself, Charles makes his way in the opposite direction, deeper into the labyrinth of City Hall.

Fortunately, he’s been here so often that he’s practically got a mental map of the place—after all, he covered it before Hank took over. Within moments, he’s arrived outside the impressive oaken door with the simple gold plaque that reads _Mayor’s Office_.

His knock is greeted with a cheerful, “Come on in!” He obeys, pushing the door open and stepping into the diploma-plastered, knickknack-coated clusterfuck that is the mayor’s office. He’s been told (mainly by Erik, of course) that it used to be worse; previous mayors apparently accumulated crap like ugly furniture accumulates dust, and the unfortunate Steve was left to deal with all of it.

And Charles has seen the guy’s house (which sounds horrifically creepy until you consider Steve’s surprising openness and willingness to invite the press into his home), and Rogers is by no means a pack rat. In fact, he’s more of a filing-cabinets, everything-in-its-place, hospital-corner-folded-sheets kind of guy. For god’s sake, the man was in the army for eight years. So Charles isn’t entirely sure how he still manages to smile from behind a desk that looks like it belongs in a really, really weird consignment store that also doubles as a crazy grandmother’s attic.

Still, smile he does, bounding up out of his chair like an excited child and saying, “Charles! Great to see you, buddy!”

“Mr. Rogers,” Charles nods with a smile (he can’t help it—Steve’s is infectious). “That was quite an announcement, sir.”

“Wasn’t it, though?” Steve grins, settling back into his chair and folding his hands behind his head. “I have to admit, I was pretty surprised by how well it went over. I really wasn’t expecting that degree of support.”

“Oh?” Charles raises his eyebrows; this may just be him, but seems sort of logical that most people would be overjoyed to hear that they won’t have to worry about finding severed heads in their mailboxes anymore. He flips to a fresh page in his notebook, poises his pen over it, and asks, “Why not?”

“It just seems like they’ve heard it so many times before,” Steve shrugs. “I mean, I remember that when I was working down at the station, it seemed like they announced a new crime initiative every other year at the very least.”

“So what’s so special about this one? Why do you think it’s going to work?”

“Oh,” Steve says with the twinkle in his eye that won him a fifteen-point margin, “I _know_ it’s going to work. First off, we’re bringing in the big guns with Agent Fury and his team. They have tools and technology that we just can’t afford, which is great. But more importantly, we’re looking at crime in a fundamentally different way this time. Are you a chess-playing man, Charles?”

“Huh?” Charles blinks. “I…well, I play every once in a while, I suppose. Used to play all the time when I was a kid.”

“Never really been one for it myself,” Steve says with a shrug. “But I admire the strategy of it, so I look at this new plan like this: in chess, one strategy is to try and capture as many of your opponent’s pawns as possible, correct?”

“Mhmm,” Charles nods, trying to look like he doesn’t know exactly where this is going. He’s found interviews go best when he doesn’t actually anticipate everything that his source says. It makes people feel good when they feel smart, and when people feel good, they tell you things.

“But, okay, I’m not a chess player and even _I_ know that’s kind of a dumb strategy,” Steve goes on. “Because, really, the whole point of the game is to trap your opponent’s king, right? So why not just go straight for checkmate instead of wasting your time fooling around with the pawns?”

“Aah,” Charles says appreciatively, jotting down notes as quickly as his hand will go. “So your main targets will be…?”

“Gang leaders, drug traffickers, arms dealers,” Steve rattles off promptly, “You name it. We’re going to hit the command structure and the supply chain and leave the small-timers cut off.”

“And you’re not worried about creating some sort of power vacuum? Wouldn’t a lot of chaotic in-fighting amongst smaller criminals just create a bigger problem?”

“Believe me, Charles,” Steve leans across the desk, earnest as apple pie, “We would never have adopted this plan if we thought it posed any danger to Amistad’s citizens. The data shows that once you take away the structure, everything else collapses. Without drugs, guns, or money, there won’t be a thing they can do.”

“Forgive me, Mr. Rogers,” Charles begins with a faint smile, “But this sounds an awful lot like…”

“Military strategy? I know.” Steve sighs, straightening a stack of paper on his desk in a pathetic effort to combat the clutter all around him. “I don’t mean to be dramatic here, but…this kind of thing really is necessary. We really _are_ at war.”

-

“Jeeee-sus,” Logan says loudly. The entire staff has reassembled in the conference room, drawn there by the incredible staticy roar of Charles’ tape recorder. It’s currently sitting in the middle of the Round Table, abandoned in favor of Charles’ notebook of handy-dandy scary-ass quotes from Steve.

“We’re at _war_?” Sean says incredulously, paging through Charles’ notes. “Jesus.”

“Well, that’s a headline if I ever saw one,” Hank says mildly, cleaning his glasses with his sleeve. “Mayor Rogers: We’re At War With Crime.”

“Seems like crime’s winning so far,” Scott remarks.

“Steve seems amazingly confident, though,” Charles says thoughtfully. “The FBI must be offering some pretty substantial aid.”

“Yeah, but that’s just Steve,” Sean points out. “The dude would seem amazingly confident if he told us that aliens were landing tomorrow and we’d better all prepare for probing.”

“Sean, please,” Charles says absently as Alex, Sean, and Armando snigger uncontrollably.

“Immature idiocy aside,” Erik says, shooting a death glare at the giggling interns, “We’ve got one hell of a story on our hands here.”

“That’s for sure,” Charles nods. “Right, well, I’ll get on that. Hank, I’d like you to get me some stats on crime rates over the past decade, maybe look at some of the previous crime initiatives.” The bespectacled reporter nods and dashes off to his cubicle, and Charles turns to the next assignment.

“ Azazel, we’re going to need photos of Rogers and the FBI guys if they’ll stand still for long enough. I’ve got a few crap ones from the announcement, but see if you can get some good ones without thumbs in them. Janos, you’re with him.” The silent duo nod and make their way towards the photo lab.

“Emma,” Charles continues briskly, “I want man on the street reactions. I talked to a few people at City Hall, but we’ll need more, and—be nice, please, Emma, we really don’t want a repeat of last time.” After a second’s consideration, he adds, “Armando, you go with her. No, Alex, don’t give me that look, I need you and Angel down at the courthouse finding records and stats for Hank. And no, I _don’t_ want to hear it, just go.” With a collective sigh, the sulky foursome slink out of the conference room.

“Logan, I need you to-”

“Talk to my sources. On it.” Logan nods and hurries out of the room.

“Right,” Charles nods. “Good. I’ll be the fingers on this one, then. Scott, you’ll edit and fact check as I send to you.” Scott nods and wanders back over to the copy cave. Once he’s gone, Charles takes a deep breath, looks around the room, and meets the hopeful eyes of Sean.

“Sean, you…” He flounders for a moment before, thank god, he delves into the far reaches of his brain and saves himself. “I need you designing tomorrow’s front page. This is going to be a big damn spread, I want an eye-catching layout ready for us to fill.”

“Gotcha, boss,” Sean grins and lopes off across the newsroom.

“Oh, and Moira, darling,” Charles adds breathlessly, “If you could make sure everyone’s got some safe mode of transportation to wherever they’re going? I don’t want them leaving Angel behind again, that was really dreadful.”

“Of course,” she smiles, moving quickly from the room.

“And don’t let Alex drive!” Charles shouts after her before turning, somewhat dazed, to look around the room. He has a faint, fleeting terror that he’s forgotten someone—but no, it’s just Erik, rising slowly from his chair as he thumbs thoughtfully through Charles’ tattered notebook.

“Everything okay?” Charles asks, body caught halfway between the urge to go towards him and the warning that says _stay right where you are_.

“Mm,” Erik grunts, flipping past another page or two before snapping the notebook shut and giving Charles a very, very odd look. For a second, Charles thinks he’s become completely delusional, because he’s definitely seeing a glow of warmth in Erik’s eyes that has never been there—that should never _be_ there because Erik is _straight_ and Erik is his _boss_ but most importantly Erik is _Erik_ and projecting that affectionate expression onto his features is like turning windmills into giants.

“You’re not…” Charles begins, pauses when he realizes that he has no idea what he’s trying to say, flaps his hands helplessly, and finally settles for, “You’re sure?”

“Perfectly.” Erik holds out the notebook and Charles hesitates, takes it, hopes his hands don’t tremble a little when they go near Erik’s.

And then Erik smiles in his narrow, lopsided way and says, “It’s just nice to be reminded of why I hired you.”

Before Charles can reply, before he can even _think_ about replying, Erik’s walking past him towards the door, clapping him on the shoulder (and knocking out whatever gasp of air still remained in his lungs) as he goes. Charles is rooted to the spot, watching him recede across the newsroom and disappear into his office.

After what feels like hours, he snaps out of it, cracking his knuckles and hurrying off to his computer. He’s got a front page to write.


	4. Chapter 4

The week after that story runs (and oh, what a story it is, how brilliantly everything turns out, how bloody _good_ everyone is), Charles walks into his office and finds Moira waiting for him.

“Morning,” he says cheerfully, leaning against one side of the doorway. “Come to seduce me, have you? I must say, love, that if you have, organizing my desk is a rather odd way to go about it.”

“Everyone knows that the way to a man’s heart is through his drawers,” Moira says absently, shuffling a stack of papers together and setting it aside. Without meaning to, Charles starts to laugh, deep and full-bellied, and then Moira looks up and flushes a little when she realizes.

“Oh, _mature_ , Charles,” she says, rolling her eyes but unable to hide her smile. “As if, anyway.”

“What?” Charles says around a chuckle, but she just shakes her head and settles into his (poor, unfortunate, dilapidated and extremely battered) desk chair.

“I’m worried about Erik,” she says quietly, brown eyes going serious, and Charles frowns and closes the door behind him.

There’s a small, cruel part of him that wants to say _so am I, have been for two years now, what else is new?_ Fortunately, he suppresses it and says instead, “What’s going on?”

“I’ve always been the first in the office,” she says, frowning and rolling a stray pen back and forth across Charles’ desktop. “First in every morning, last out every night. It’s just part of the job; I make sure everyone goes home, that the janitors can get in and that the lights go out. But lately…Erik’s _always_ in his office. And not just the normal kind of ‘Erik’s always in his office.’ I mean, like, I get here at seven thirty every morning and he’s in there. And when I leave at seven or eight at night, he’s _still_ there. If I ask him to go home, he gives me half-assed answers about editing stories or writing reports for Tony…or sometimes he just glares at me until I go away.”

She sighs, shrugs, flicks the pen right off the edge of the desk and onto the floor. “I mean, I know he doesn’t like me. That’s not a problem. What _is_ a problem is…well, I don’t, I don’t want to make any assumptions or anything, god knows I’d love to be wrong about this, but I can’t help—I mean, it looks like…”

“You’re worried that he’s sleeping in the office,” Charles finishes for her, the heavy dread that’s been swelling in his stomach this whole time clawing its way up the back of his throat to collect on his tongue.

“Basically.” Moira leans down, picks up the errant pen, and replaces it on Charles’ desk. “And I don’t know about you, but to me that seems like a not very good thing.”

“Right, right,” Charles nods, running a hand through his hair because he’s got two stories to edit today and he _so_ does not need this looming at the back of his mind. “Yeah, it’s really very not good. I’ll, uh, I’ll have a word with him about that.”

“You’re a dear.” Moira smiles, rising up from his chair and wafting her way towards the door. “Good luck.”

“Thanks,” he says vaguely, stepping out of the doorway so she can get out. “I’ll need it.”

-

He puts off talking to Erik for most of the day.

Well, that’s not strictly true; he doesn’t so much put it off as just sort of…well, not _forget_ , that would be dreadful and really it’s not the sort of thing one _could_ forget, but…well, he gets distracted. Anyway, the point is that between Angel’s comma errors (the constant texting is evidently not so good for her punctuation skills), the constant internet problems (Sean gets bored around midday and starts messing with the router, which is never a good thing), and a sudden falling out between Alex and Armando (they wind up rolling around on the floor throwing poorly-aimed punches and making rather inappropriate statements about each other’s mothers), it’s nearly six o’clock by the time Charles pokes his head into Erik’s office.

“Got a minute?” he says, desperate to sound cheerful enough to fool Erik into thinking that this is going to be anything like a normal conversation. Because how, exactly, does one go about asking one’s boss if he’s been hoboing it up in the office? That’s _certainly_ not something they taught in journalism school.

“Not particularly.” Erik frowns down at his keyboard like he’s not entirely sure what it’s doing there or what it’s for. “Some fucker from BP just called me demanding a correction on Hank’s story about those goddamn exploding pump jacks, and now Tony’s on my ass about some damn thing or other, and…” He looks up at Charles, who is probably doing a terrible job of concealing the chagrin that’s suddenly got his stomach in a headlock. Something on his face, anyway, makes Erik slump a little, almost in defeat (though, Charles’ mind insists, that can’t be, that’s absolutely crazy, that’s like Caesar or Hannibal or _Patton_ slumping in defeat, for god’s sake).

“Oh, fuck it. I don’t have a minute, but I’ll give one to you anyway.” Erik turns away from his computer screen and scrubs his hands over his face, not quite hiding a yawn. And now that he’s looking for it, Charles sees just how haggard he looks, how deep the shadows under his eyes have grown in the past couple days. “Is this about Alex and Armando? I just sent them both home, I couldn’t stand the bloody sulking. Nobody could get any work done with the two of them glaring at each other from across the newsroom, and I think people are going to start thinking that we’re running an underground kickboxing ring in here, have you seen the state of Alex’s face lately? I think Mando split his goddamn lip. _Again_.”

He sighs, runs a hand over his smoothed-back hair, and looks up at Charles. “Anyway. What is it?”

“Um.” Charles takes a deep breath, steps all the way into Erik’s office, and closes the door behind him. For just a fraction of a second, he sees something that might just be panic well in Erik’s eyes, but it’s quickly replaced by the usual dull, flat look. He tries to avoid looking at it as he says, “I, uh…I don’t mean to pry, Erik, but, uh…is everything…okay with you?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Erik says sharply, and it takes everything Charles has not to wince.

“If you have something to ask me,” Erik adds coldly, “You may as well just come out and say it. Not all of us have the patience to dance around things like-”

“Are you sleeping in your office?” Charles is surprised by the way the words come out of him; abrupt and rushed, they just kind of slip out from between his lips and tumble heavily to the ground. Erik, on the other hand, doesn’t look surprised at all. His voice is curiously flat as he says _don’t be ridiculous_ and doesn’t meet Charles’ eyes.

“You are, aren’t you?” Charles says, and he’s thinking of Erik curled up at night on the hard ground underneath his desk and there’s something grabbing a hold of his insides and twisting, twisting hard and not letting go. “My god, Erik, what happened?”

“I got evicted,” Erik says dully, eyes fixed on one corner of his desk like someone glued them there. “Apparently my next-door neighbor finally complained about me cutting holes in his trash cans and kicking them down the stairs every night.”

“I—oh my god, you _what_?” Charles chokes out. “You—Erik, my god, you—Christ, why am I laughing, why is this funny, you got evicted because you kicked your neighbor’s trash cans down the stairs every night? Why on earth—why would you _do_ that?”

 “What?” Erik demands, completely perplexed in the face of Charles’ helpless giggles. “The guy kept me up until three in the goddamn morning doing god knows what to his girlfriend, I had no choice but to retaliate!”

“Erik, you—okay, no, that is _not_ how we resolve our problems, you do know that, right?”

“It’s not like I didn’t try talking things out,” Erik harrumphs. “Well, I mean, I left him a note kindly requesting that he keep the headboard-banging and animal squeals to a minimum, but he just nailed condoms to my door. _Used_ condoms, Charles, it was absolutely repulsive. What was I supposed to do?”

Charles opens his mouth, realizes that he has no earthly idea of how to respond to that, and closes it.

“Look,” he says finally, “Okay, no, we are _not_ discussing that any further. The point, though, is that you cannot be sleeping in the office.”

“I’m sure Moira’s finding it quite irritating,” Erik says with a wry grin, “But I’ve only given the janitor a minor heart attack once or twice. He knows to expect me by now.”

“Erik…” Charles blinks slowly as the thought occurs to him: “Just how long, exactly, have you been doing this?”

“About…a week?” Erik shrugs. “I’ve been looking for a new place, but the rent in this town is absolutely-”

“No, okay,” Charles cuts him off firmly, “This is ridiculous. You’re coming home with me.”

“I— _what_?” There it is again: that tiny flash of panic, that sudden dilation of the pupils, the vulnerable look that goes just as quickly as it comes. Now Erik’s shaking his head, frowning. “Absolutely _not_ , Charles. I could never—I mean, it’s very kind of you to offer, but that kind of imposition, I couldn’t-”

“No trouble at all,” Charles says briskly. “The sofa’s a fold-out, and I’ve got extra sheets. Might be a tad uncomfortable, but better than the floor, eh?”

“ _No_ , Charles, I can’t—I am your _boss_ , I can’t just go live with you!”

“Forgive me if I’m wrong here,” Charles says in a sudden, heedless rush of optimism, “But I feel that perhaps our relationship has progressed somewhat beyond boss-employee, don’t you think?”

“Of course,” Erik says quickly, too quickly, something strange and fleeting twisting across his face. “Of course it has, Charles, don’t be—I just, I didn’t want to—I don’t want to-”

“How do you feel about prawns?” Charles says abruptly, cutting off Erik’s floundering.

“What?”

“Shrimp, if you like.” Charles waggles his fingers vaguely. “Little crawly things, live in the sea, lots of legs, weird wavy antennae things, good in curry, bad in fruitcake-”

“I know what _shrimp_ are, Charles,” Erik snaps. “What the hell are you on about?”

“I have some in my fridge, been meaning to cook them up for a day or two. Over some pasta, they’d make a pretty good meal for two, maybe with a butter and lemon sauce and some capers, don’t you think?”

“Charles.” Erik sighs, pinching fretfully at the bridge of his nose, “For the last time, I am _not_ going home with you.”

“I’m afraid, my friend, that you are laboring under a fundamental misunderstanding here,” Charles smiles, arms folded. “You seem, for some reason, to think that you have a choice in the matter. As your second-in-command, your editorial partner—no, okay, as your _friend_ , I’m demanding that you get a proper dinner and sleep in a proper bed. Just for one night, Erik, I promise, and then you’re free to return to your sub-desk cave if you wish. ”

“I’m not a charity case,” Erik says, sullen, and Charles has a sudden, gut-wrenching vision of Erik as a tiny child dragging himself home in the pouring rain with scraped knees and twisted ankles, refusing every offer of assistance because he has to do it _by himself_. And yes, maybe Charles’ mind’s eye is sappier than a Dickens novel, but the thought hurts him all the same.

“You’re not,” Charles agrees brightly, pushing Tiny Erik to a distant corner of his mind for the moment. “You’re just a bit down on your luck at the moment and need a place to crash while you find a new apartment. Simple as that.”

Erik opens his mouth to argue, but evidently changes his mind and blows out a long, long sigh instead.

“Just one night,” he says firmly, and Charles nods and tries to pretend that it doesn’t kill him to do it. The very thought of having Erik in his apartment, having him sleeping on the fold-out in his living room is just…a bit more than he can handle at the moment, actually, so he tries to ignore it.

“Just one night,” he says soothingly, “I promise. Now, get your things together. We’re leaving in fifteen.”

He can’t quite ignore the unexpected thrill that the word _we_ sends through every fiber of his body.

-

“Would it be terribly cliché of me to say, “It’s not much, I’m afraid?”” Charles says over his shoulder, fumbling to unlock his battered front door.

“Terribly,” Erik nods, smirking faintly as the lock clunks and Charles pushes the door open.

“Well, it really isn’t,” Charles says, stumbling across his darkened living room to flip the light switch. “I don’t think I’ve quite finished unpacking.”

“And you’ve lived here…” Erik pulls the door closed behind him, casting a slow look across the disheveled room and the half-empty cardboard boxes stacked waist-high against one wall.

“Over two years,” Charles says cheerfully, setting his messenger bag down on his desk and scooping an abandoned pair of jeans off the couch. “Just never really got around to it, I suppose, and I can never seem to find the time to buy more bookshelves.”

“Charles,” Erik says slowly, crossing the room to inspect the half-dozen half-open boxes, “Are these _all_ books?”

“There are a few records, I think,” Charles shrugs, snatching two or three crumpled tee shirts up off the floor and tossing them through the open door to his bedroom (and _god_ , how he wishes he had gotten his shit together and actually picked up his apartment and maybe done some laundry last night instead of watching The Godfather II until one in the morning). “But mostly books.”

“So…explain to me how, exactly, you fit all this into a Manhattan apartment?” Erik flips open a box and sifts through the paperbacks stacked inside.

“Well, first of all, I lived in Brooklyn.” Charles sweeps orange peels and one or two (awful, guilty, moments-of-desperation-and-extreme-stress) cigarette butts off his desk and into the trash can. “And secondly, my apartment selection was based almost entirely on the percentage of wall space that was covered by bookshelves.”

Erik just chuckles and shakes his head, still sifting through Charles’ heaps of paperbacks. Charles decides to give up on tidying his wreck of an apartment and straightens up, casting around for something to do that will distract him from the fact that Erik is standing in the middle of his living room sorting through his book collection.

“I’ll, uh…I’ll just get dinner started, then,” he says finally, trying not to eye the sleek, shifting panes of Erik’s back as he transfers his weight from foot to foot, paging through one particular paperback.

“Sounds good,” Erik says absently, focused entirely on the pages of the novel. “You know, somehow I’m not surprised that you’re a Pratchett fan.”

“What do you take me for, some kind of barbarian?” Charles huffs jokingly, shedding his cardigan and stepping behind the chest-high counter that separates his kitchen from the living room. “Of _course_ I’m a Pratchett fan.”

“Oh, and,” he adds, opening the fridge and sticking his head around the door, “Feel free to put your things down on the couch. Or wherever.”

Erik doesn’t respond, his nose deep in the book.

“Or…whatever,” Charles mumbles, sticking his nose back into the fridge. “You could just stand there and read my books. That works too. Okay.” _Get it together, Charles_ , he tells himself, trying to pretend that his hands aren’t trembling just the tiniest bit.

He takes a deep breath, pulls the bag of raw shrimp out of the fridge, and tips the lot into a strainer, which he then sets in the sink. Another bowl and a paring knife later, he’s peeling and deveining the shrimp in a constant, automatic motion that sets his mind at ease. It almost lets him stop thinking about _oh my god Erik’s in my apartment and oh my god he’s sleeping here tonight and what if I sleepwalk and jump him without knowing it or yell something really embarrassing in my sleep._ The more sane portions of his brain endeavor to remind him that he neither walks nor talks in his sleep (if he did, Raven would have been sure to make merciless fun of him for it), but the anxiety is still there, that constant press behind his eyes, the fear that _he’s not good enough_.

“You do that awfully well,” Erik says quietly, _just_ behind him, and all of a sudden Charles is aware of the faint heat pressing up against his back despite the fact that Erik must be at least a foot away from him and _god_ does the man radiate heat as well as pure sex appeal?

“Th-thanks,” Charles gulps, trying to hide the fact that he very nearly sliced his thumb off at the sound of Erik’s voice because where the _fuck_ did he come from? “I worked in a restaurant for a bit when I was in grad school. Needless to say, it was a place of rather ill repute.”

“Needless to say?” Erik repeats, leaning up against the counter and raising an eyebrow.

“Well, yes,” Charles shrugs, returning to his deveining and trying to get his breathing under control. “What decent restaurant would let a hapless, posh journalism student like me do anything other than wash dishes or wait tables?”

“If you were so posh, why were you working there in the first place?” Erik snorts, and Charles feels his shoulders seize up in inadvertent discomfort. This is not exactly a conversation he should be having with a knife in his hand, but Erik’s too sharp for outright subject-changing.

“Just because you’re posh doesn’t mean you have money,” he says calmly. “I had to work my way through grad school. Just paid off my last loan last year, actually.”

“What, so did the trust fund run out or something?” Erik folds his arms and settles down onto one of the three tall stools tucked up against the counter that Charles bought in a fit of ridiculous optimism that he would ever have anyone over to his apartment. “Forgive me if I’m wrong here, but I’m pretty sure I remember a story or two about roller skating through the halls of the family mansion.”

“I…” Charles fights for the right words, tries to ignore how every hair on his neck is standing on end because this conversation is going to involve his mother and his mother is really the last thing he wants to be talking about right now.

“The trust fund got emptied out on Harvard,” he lies finally, slicing so viciously into a shrimp that the innocent crustacean drops to the bottom of the sink in two pieces. “And the parents weren’t exactly willing to shell out more cash for another two years at Columbia. I think they bought a yacht instead.” Not entirely a lie, then; Raven, the cruel child, sent him pictures of the hideous vessel that his stepfather bought with the remainder of his trust fund.

“Charming,” Erik says drily. “Look, is there anything I can do?”

“A bit too late for—oh, dinner, you mean dinner, right, okay, sorry, being maudlin, ah-” Charles takes a deep breath, sets down his paring knife, and tries to assemble something resembling a coherent, non-humiliating sentence. “If you’re not averse to chopping onions and garlic…”

“I’d be delighted.” Charles laughs, rolls his eyes, rinses his hands, and grabs an onion out of the bowl on the center island.

“Catch,” he calls, tossing the onion into Erik’s waiting hands. “There are cutting boards in the top cabinet to your right and knives in the block. Don’t bother chopping it too finely, it’s all just getting sautéed, anyway.”

“Aye aye, chef,” Erik grins, pulling out a cutting board and setting the onion down on it.

“Oh, if that horrible Italian chef I used to work for could see me now,” Charles chuckles, returning to his shrimp. “I’m pretty sure that the man shouted at me more often just because I was English. Probably still upset about the war.”

“Made you pretty good at peeling shrimp, though,” Erik points out absently, knife moving across the cutting board with quick, efficient strokes.

“You’re not too shabby at chopping,” Charles points out, tipping the shrimp shells into the garbage and pulling a saucepan out of one of his many cluttered cabinets. “Did you work for some dreadful Italian man, too?”

“No, I was just a mama’s boy,” Erik says, head bent over his chopping work like his life depends on it. “I helped in the kitchen instead of playing baseball with the other kids.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Charles dares a glance at Erik’s face—desperately focused, brows furrowed, eyes sliding back and forth with his knife like the paper on a typewriter—and gets the sudden, dreadful feeling that he’s not the only one keeping secrets around here. Silent, he sets the saucepan down on the stovetop, lights the burner, and pours a dollop of olive oil into the pan. He watches the oil heat up, tilting the pan from side to side to coat it, and searches desperately for the right words.

Eventually, he settles for, “That was sweet of you.” His voice is quiet and strangely unlike his own.

“Yes,” Erik says after a brief pause, his knife slowing just a fraction in its assault on the onion. “Yes, I suppose it was.”

-

They have a pleasant dinner, the conversation interspersed with the comfortable silences of two exhausted people who have worked far too much today. After agonizing briefly over whether or not to put candles on the table—he worries that they would be too blatantly romantic and eventually decides against them—Charles manages to pass the remainder of the meal relatively anxiety-free, and, mercifully, the topic of his trust fund does not arise again.

It’s around eleven thirty by the time they get the dishes done (side by side at the sink, elbows _nearly_ touching, so horrifyingly domestic that Charles is sorely tempted to try and stuff his face down the drain or something ridiculous and dramatic like that), and Charles can’t quite stifle a yawn as he fills the dishwasher with detergent and turns it on.

“I’ll find you some sheets,” he says, straightening up, voice strangely hushed against the background rumble of the dishwasher. Erik just nods, leaning up against a countertop and scrubbing his hands over his face. Charles manages (quite narrowly, actually) to suppress the urge to run a soothing hand over Erik’s haggard face and smooth away the worry lines, the dark circles, the deep crevasse between his eyebrows that only gets deeper when he frowns. Instead, he turns on his heel and marches himself out of the kitchen and over to the all-purpose closet tucked into an inconspicuous corner of the living room.

A few minutes and several junk avalanches later, Charles emerges triumphant, bottom and top sheet clenched in one fist. Erik wanders in from the kitchen, and wordlessly they set about unfolding the couch into some semblance of a bed. Clumsily, Charles tries to shake out the bottom sheet and hook one corner of it onto the mattress. A passable job of that accomplished, he attempts to do the same with the opposite corner, but succeeds only in making an extremely undignified noise when the first corner pops off and snaps him in the face.

“Charles.” Erik is trying to stifle a laugh; Charles can see it leaking in around the edges of his mouth and eyes. “Has anyone ever explained the concept of elastic to you?”

“I—it’s not—I don’t really-” Charles sputters, but his half-formed words die in his throat when Erik reaches around him, puts his hands on top of his (and god, Charles thinks, how different they are, Erik’s long-fingered and square-palmed and big-knuckled, Charles’ soft and rounded and ruddy at the joints like they’ve been ever since he was a child), and helps him tuck the sheet’s edge underneath the corner of the mattress.

“Now, stay there,” Erik orders, and faintly, Charles thinks that there is actually nothing else he _could_ do without falling over or throwing up or doing some other hideously embarrassing thing because _Erik touched his hands_ and what is he now, twelve and hormonal as a rhinoceros in heat?

While Charles has his minor internal panic attack, Erik moves to the opposite corner of the mattress and secures the bottom sheet, tucking it under with swift, practiced motions.

“What?” he says, and Charles realizes that he’s been staring, goggle-eyed, like some kind of amorous fish. He can only hope that Erik mistakes his lovesick stare for one of awe at his bed-making prowess, which, thank the lord, he does: “I told you I was a mama’s boy. I spent my childhood making beds and generally emasculating myself.”

“It seems to have served you well,” Charles says weakly, shuffling over to the next corner and doing his hapless best to mimic Erik’s effortless actions without become completely distracted by the ghost of Erik’s hands on his.

“I suppose,” Erik shrugs, finishing off the last corner and straightening up. “My only question is how on earth _you’ve_ managed to make your bed all these years.”

“Poorly,” Charles says honestly, and he has to avert his eyes as Erik throws his head back and laughs. “I, uh…I think I’ll leave you to deal with the top sheet. I’ll go grab you a pillow, be right back.”

“Are you sure you can handle that?” Erik calls after him teasingly, and Charles can’t resist the childish impulse to turn in the doorway of his bedroom and stick his tongue out at Erik, who just laughs again and shakes the top sheet out over the mattress.

“Try not to hurt yourself, Charles.” Erik’s voice follows him into his darkened bedroom, where he pauses for a moment to catch his breath because he would never for a moment imagined how watching Erik make a bed would affect him. There’s just something so…so normal, so non-office, so domestic, so _natural_ about it that Charles can feel his heart swelling to what feels like twice its normal size. It doesn’t help that Erik looks _happy_ , happy like Charles hasn’t seen him in months, happy like Charles’ apartment is where he wants to be and Charles is who he wants to be with. And, okay, his stomach definitely does a back flip (or, by the feel of it, a triple axel) at that thought, but he quickly reminds himself not to be so delusional and snatches a pillow up off his bed.

He walks back into the living room to find Erik sitting on the fold-out taking his shoes off, unlacing each one with the eerie concentration of complete exhaustion before sliding it off and onto the floor with a faint clunk. Charles watches, fascinated, from the doorway, until he realizes that he is actually the creepiest person in existence and snaps out of it.

“Here you go,” he says in a bizarre semblance of cheeriness, tossing the pillow onto the fold-out. Erik looks up, legs still crossed at the ankle, and smiles an odd sort of smile, like he can’t quite believe what he’s seeing but is happy about it anyway.

“Thank you, Charles,” he says heavily, and there’s such meaning behind it that Charles is pretty sure that he’s not just talking about the pillow. “I mean it. I really owe you.”

“You most certainly do not,” Charles says firmly, folding his arms. “You’re no trouble at all, I promise.”

“Well,” Erik says, his smile losing that strange, earnest edge and growing into a full-fledged grin, “That’s a bit disappointing, isn’t it?”

Charles laughs, rolls his eyes, and says, “Good night, Erik.”

“Good night, Charles.”

He turns to go, hesitates, then turns back, half a million reasons to linger surfacing in his mind. He chooses the least insane one (namely, the one that doesn’t involve leaping onto the fold-out and kissing Erik senseless) and says, “I’ll wake you up in the morning at about seven. There’s coffee in the pantry and I think I know how to use my coffee maker, so we can figure that out, and…do you eat breakfast, because I’m afraid I don’t really eat breakfast, I’m quite dreadful at breakfast, but there might be some Cheerios or something-”

“Charles.” Erik cuts him off with the fond, exasperated smile that’s been cropping up more and more often lately. “Go to sleep. You’re doing that thing.”

“What thing?” Charles demands, not sure whether to be insulted or just plain baffled. “I’m not doing a thing, I don’t know what you’re talking about, there is no _thing_ , what _thing-_ ”

“That thing where you ramble when you’re really, really exhausted. For god’s sake, you’re starting to sound like Tony, it’s worrying.” Charles opens his mouth to protest, but Erik just shakes his head and says, “We’ll figure everything out in the morning. Go to sleep, Charles.”

“Right,” Charles says faintly, blinking slowly. “Right, okay. Sleep well.”

“You too,” Erik says as Charles turns and steps into the sudden darkness of his bedroom. He takes a deep breath, closes the door behind him, and stands there a moment, marveling at how something so familiar as an empty room can become so lonely after having someone else in it for just a few hours.

-

He’s jerked to consciousness by a sort of _sproing_ noise, a fleshy thwump, and a string of curse words that would make Logan blush (well, okay, maybe not, but he’d almost certainly be impressed). With a blurry glance at his alarm clock, he gets a glimpse of a single-digit number that he can’t quite make out but seems _way_ smaller than it should be. Another burst of profanity—which, he decides hazily, appears to be coming from the living room—spurs him into action, and he shoves his covers back and leaps out of bed. He’s halfway across the bedroom before it occurs to him to double check that he’s clothed (fortunately, he is, albeit solely in a rather shabby pair of boxers).

After tripping over a tangled pair of pants and an upside-down shoe, he finally manages to yank open his door and stumble out into the living room. Automatically, one hand reaches to turn on the nearest lamp, which turns out to be a _really_ horrible idea. The cursing only intensifies, and he stands, blinking and wobbling slightly from side to side, as his eyes adjust to the sudden brightness.

Once they finally manage it, it takes him a moment to get past the fact that Erik is completely naked but for a pair of briefs that leave very little up to the imagination and actually take note of the situation at hand, which is this: the couch appears to have eaten Erik.

“Oh my god,” Charles murmurs, rushing across the room to attempt to pull open the foldout, which has apparently decided that it’s had enough of this shit and closed itself up, making its occupant the extremely irritated filling of a couch sandwich.

“Thanks,” Erik grunts, somewhat muffled by cushions, as Charles tries frantically to pry open the recalcitrant sofa. After a few moments of alternately heaving, yanking, cajoling, and cursing, the two of them (Erik on the inside pushing, Charles on the outside pulling) manage to create a gap large enough for Erik to crawl to freedom and flop onto the floor with a heavy sigh. Arms straining, Charles does his best to force the foldout to fold all the way out again, but after a few moments’ struggle he gives up and drops down beside Erik.

“I am so sorry,” he tells the ceiling, panting slightly from the exertion.

“Don’t worry about it,” Erik says from beside him, the rumble of his voice unexpectedly close. “I’ve been woken up in more unpleasant ways, believe me. Though, I have to say, I definitely wondered for a second if this was what you were using on me instead of an alarm clock.”

“That would be one hell of an alarm,” Charles chuckles. “And no, don’t worry; I won’t be waking you up quite this way every morning. I’m not a sadist.”

“Glad to hear it,” Erik snorts (and out of the corner of his eye Charles sees him fold his hands behind his head and the sleek lines of the muscles in his arms are almost more than he can bear to look at).

“Besides, you’re grumpy enough when you wake up in a normal way. I wouldn’t dare let you loose on the world if you’d been woken like that.”

“Thanks.” Erik rolls his eyes, sits up, and contemplates the sofa, knees folded to his chest and hands splayed on the floor behind him. “I suppose we should try to fix this.”

“Mm,” Charles agrees, sitting up and trying to contemplate the sofa and not Erik’s bare legs. “I think I might have a screwdriver somewhere…”

-

“Fixing the couch” quickly turns into “poking at the couch with a screwdriver and kicking it, maybe that will fix it,” which in turn devolves into “raiding the fridge and sitting around on the floor eating cold pizza and doing really bad imitations of your coworkers,” which, in the end, becomes “lying around on the floor laughing hysterically because you’re so tired that your brain no longer functions and everything is funny.”

The microwave clock in the kitchen reads 3:25 by the time Charles bullies a half-asleep Erik into sleeping in his bed. This is, surprisingly, not too difficult, thanks to the fact that Erik dozed off face-down in a slice of pizza and is consequently incapable of forming coherent sentences.

“No, fuckin’…m’not taking your bed, Charles, for fuck’s sake, it’s not, I’m not, I don’t wanna, I’m not, the…the thing, whad’youcallit, has a lot of, of vowels in it, I don’t wanna be, I’m not a, a…incon…inconvenience, that’s the thingie, yeah.”

“You’re not an inconvenience,” Charles assures him, maneuvering him up off the floor and towards the bedroom. “I am holding myself responsible for my couch eating you and will therefore sleep out here tonight. It’s _fine_.”

“I…I’m not…” Erik mumbles faintly as Charles leads him across the living room. “I don’t wanna…Charles, m’not gonna…aw, Christ, that’s a bed, isn’t it, oh my god.” He stops short in the doorway, eyes fixed on the rumpled mess of Charles’ bed.

“An astute observation, yes,” Charles agrees (the more tired he is, the more verbose and 19th-century he tends to become, it’s a quirk he’s had since late-night Bronte study sessions his freshman year at Harvard). “I’m afraid it’s a bit of a mess since, you know, I’ve been sleeping in it for most of the night-”

“Fuck it,” Erik mutters and dives towards the bed with the grace and form of an Olympic gymnast. He lands a perfect ten, bounces a few times, and buries his face in Charles’ pillow, drawing the blankets up around himself and curling up tightly.

If Charles were a weaker man, he might actually give in to the overwhelming urge to crawl into bed next to Erik and latch onto him like a frightened child. As it is, he very nearly does just that, because, okay, the sight of Erik Lehnsherr sleeping in _his bed_ with his face pressed into _his pillow_ and his long limbs coiled up underneath _his sheets_ is a bit more than he can really handle right now. Plus, it’s disgustingly late and he is inhumanly tired and not exactly in full possession of his usual self-control. Erik probably wouldn’t even notice in the state he’s in, but the morning…the morning would be awful. The morning would start with him waking up blissful with his arms around Erik and end with Erik shouting and Charles apologizing and lying that _I didn’t know what I was doing I’m so sorry Erik god I’m sorry it won’t happen again_ and Erik leaving anyway, suitcase under his arm and disgust on his face.

It’s that thought that drives Charles back into the living room and onto the still-closed sofa. After a moment’s deliberation, he decides that he’s way too low on sleep and willpower to start another battle with the foldout, so he just settles down onto the worn but still faintly scratchy upholstery. It’s a warm night, but he still shivers a little as he stretches out, blanketless, toes hanging off one end of the couch, and tries to get some sleep.

-

When Charles daydreams (as he does a little too often, staring dreamily at his computer screen or steering wheel or shopping cart or notebook), he likes to imagine himself as the one who saves Erik. Because, okay, he adores the man, but he most certainly would not nominate him for the best-adjusted human of the year. Probably not even of the week.

But in his daydreams, none of that matters. In his daydreams, it is Charles who is the well-adjusted one, the one who pulls Erik back from the brink and loves him perfectly and teaches him to love back. In his daydreams, he is flawless and helps Erik to be the same, and none of Erik’s emotional issues can mar the beautiful blue skies of their love.

But in the back of his head, there’s always a voice that whispers, _have you seen yourself lately?_

Because, to be perfectly honest, he’s really _not_ all that well-adjusted. He doesn’t, at least, fly into a complete rage on a regular basis or get evicted for kicking garbage cans down flights of stairs, but it’s not like he doesn’t have deep-seated emotional issues.

Ever since he was a kid, he’s liked distance. Not even liked; he _needed_ distance, needed it because it was either that or long hopelessly for an affection that he never got. He learned to love distance, learned to manipulate and wield it as carefully as his parents didn’t, as they just plunked him down at arm’s length and bought him books that he’d already read.

And really, he’s tried to forget. He’s tried to leave the distance behind him in Westchester, at Harvard, at Columbia, in New York City, in a million places that he’s left behind, but it follows him every time, creeping in around the edges of every relationship he forms, every person who he tries to throw himself at and winds up running away from.

Because he always does, in the end, in one way or another. He finds his voice going cold in every conversation, his eyes sliding away from every glance, his mouth twisting itself out of every smile he tries to force. He did it with Raven when he was sixteen and he’s spent the rest of his life running from her so he doesn’t have to force himself to fake a smile and touch her shoulder and shudder on the inside because he’s so, so afraid of being close with anyone because he doesn’t know _how_.

But he’s such a nice guy; everyone says so, everyone he’s ever met or worked with or sat in a class with. He’s a nice guy with a nice smile and a nice laugh and nice, open face. The problem is that Charles doesn’t think he’s particularly nice. He smiles and compliments and jokes and offers everything to anyone because he’s dying to prove himself wrong, but he never quite manages it. A string of failed relationships and alienated friends show that he’s nothing if not _great_ at pulling away at the crucial moment, at letting an angry lover walk out the door or sitting silent when a friend needs him to say something, _anything_. When it matters, he never knows what to do.

And even if he did, he wouldn’t do it because he’s afraid of what would happen if he did, of how things would change if he begged for forgiveness or offered a shoulder to cry on. He’s afraid of getting close to someone and then doing something _wrong_ and sending everything straight to hell. Essentially, then, there’s just no point to getting close to anyone, because he’ll always fuck it up in the end. Fucking it up at the beginning saves everyone involved a whole lot of pain.

And so the distance stays, hanging harsh in the air like a line in the sand, an invisible barrier that he just can’t cross. No matter how lonely he gets, how cold and empty his bed feels, how much bad takeout piles up in his fridge because the delivery boys keep bringing enough for two, the distance stays.

His mother wasn’t proud of him for his master’s degree, he thinks bitterly, but she’d be proud of him for that.

-

The next morning, he wakes up to the smell of coffee. A faint, sleepy noise of confusion escapes his mouth as he stretches and his toes curl around thin air.

“Ah, you’re awake,” a voice chuckles from somewhere behind him, and it takes a few groggy seconds of processing (mainly half-formed, senseless remnants of more hedonistic New York City days along the lines of _shitshitfuck who is that how drunk did I get last night who did I take home last night please don’t be another musician with a beard please oh please_ ) before his brain arrives at the inescapable conclusion: _Erik_.

“I was beginning to worry,” Erik goes on, and now Charles’ brain, having brilliantly recalled the layout of the apartment he’s lived in for two years, can place him in the kitchen somewhere. “You’re quite the sleeper, I have to say. You didn’t even twitch when I opened my suitcase and dropped my keys while I was getting dressed.”

As he’s still half asleep, Charles can’t quite restrain the animal part of his brain that murmurs, _I missed you getting dressed? Pity._ He’s always had a remarkably articulate animal brain, if he does say so himself, but now is really not the time for it to be acting up because he’s sitting up and looking over the back of the couch and there’s Erik standing in his kitchen at the stovetop with a frying pan and—

One part of Charles’ brain says, _I thought he said he got dressed!_ But that sly little animal brain just replies, _why are you complaining?_ To which the last rational part of his brain concedes, _point well made, animal brain, point well made_.

Because Erik is not, in fact, fully dressed; he is, in fact, completely naked from the waist up. It’s kind of funny how Charles never noticed how tight Erik’s pants were before, because—well, maybe it’s just when in conjunction with the naked torso, but those khakis look pretty damn tight.

Erik casts a glance over his (incredible, sculptural, slightly freckled, perfectly muscled) shoulder, and Charles decides that now would probably be a really great time to stop checking out his boss.

“I hope you don’t object to lo mein omelets,” Erik says, turning back to his frying pan, “Because I wanted to make breakfast but you only had three eggs and a carton of leftover takeout, so I improvised.”

“Lo mein—Erik,” Charles says groggily, sliding off the couch and shuffling towards the kitchen, “Erik, I thought I told you I didn’t have anything for breakfast-”

“And I thought I told _you_ that we’d figure it out in the morning,” Erik retorts smoothly, flipping an omelet neatly onto a plate. “And I did.”

“I don’t know whether to be embarrassed by the contents of my fridge or extremely impressed that you pulled this together,” Charles says, sliding onto a stool and turning around to watch Erik crack another egg into the frying pan (and not, obviously, the movement of the long, clean lines of his back or the tiny, perfect freckle in between his shoulder blades).

“You underestimate my bachelor skills, clearly,” Erik says absently, upending the takeout carton into the sizzling skillet. “I can work wonders with eggs and leftovers…though, I must admit, the sushi omelet was an extremely bad idea.”

“Oh, lord,” Charles groans, burying his face in his hand to stifle a laugh. When he looks up, Erik’s right in front of him, reaching around him to slide a plate onto the counter.

“Eat,” Erik commands over his shoulder as he makes his way back over to the stove.

“Yessir,” Charles says faintly, eyes fixed on the two perfect indentations in Erik’s perfect back just above his perfect waistband. All of a sudden, he becomes extremely conscious of the fact that he’s wearing nothing but a pair of boxers—not, thank heavens, one of the incredibly embarrassing superhero-patterned pairs that Raven so delights in sending him for various Christmases and birthdays, but still pretty awkward.

It’s not often that Charles feels uncomfortable with his own body; he long ago accepted the fact that he was pretty much doomed to be, as Raven put it, ‘fun-sized.’ And he has, fortunately, gotten over his scrawny phase, which lasted well through his college years; having to buy women’s sized sweatshirts got really tiresome (he just never looked that good in pink). But he’s always been slim, which he supposes he should be grateful for. It is, at least, better than the alternative, but it’s still incredibly frustrating to lift weights (less and less often these days, but he still tries to make a habit of it) and not bulk up in the least.

Most days, though, he’s pretty much resigned to being forever chicken-legged and wasp-waisted, though the latter has started to give way to the faintest traces of pudge around the middle, thanks to too much stress and not enough cardio. Most days, however, he does not have a half-naked Erik Lehnsherr in his kitchen.

Not to put too fine a point on it, Erik is _built_. Built in a good, normal, natural, non-creepy-body-builder way. Charles has always admired his height, his broad shoulders, his small waist, but seeing the full picture all lit up in ruthless morning sunlight is something else. The man is all lean muscle, stretched and flexed like a cat. He would, some bizarre part of Charles’ brain remarks, make an excellent artist’s model. He would be even more excellent in bed with Charles, his animal brain points out, but he has to quickly erase that thought as Erik settles onto the stool next to him.

“ _Eat_ ,” Erik says firmly, dropping a fork onto Charles’ plate with a clatter that makes him jump a good three inches out of his seat. “We need to leave for work in fifteen minutes.”

“Right, yes, sorry,” Charles mumbles, tucking into his omelet. Surprisingly, it’s pretty good; he manages to eat most of it (and what he doesn’t finish, Erik does).

Breakfast is followed by a few moments of sweet, caffeinated silence as they gulp down a companionable cup of scalding coffee (much stronger than Charles ever makes his, but rather necessary considering the previous night’s depredations).

Coffee is followed by the gut-wrenching glory of watching Erik pull on a wife-beater, quickly followed by a shame-faced shuffle into the bedroom to put on some proper clothes and try and will the blush out of his cheeks. Still, when they walk out the door a few minutes later, it’s impossible for Charles to pretend that the sight of Erik’s suitcase sitting on his living room floor isn’t enormously gratifying.

-

“You ladies have a slumber party or somethin’ last night?” Logan says when they walk into the office, both yawning and groggy behind the steam rising from their matching cups of coffee. “You both look pretty tuckered out.”

“Yes, actually, Logan,” Charles yawns, shooting an amused glance in Erik’s direction, “We stayed up until midnight braiding each other’s hair and gossiping about boys. How ever did you guess?”

“You should see my pedicure,” Erik adds dryly, and Charles nearly sprays a mouthful of coffee across the newsroom. Instead, he settles for spitting it gracelessly back into his cup and making a choked sort of noise somewhere between a laugh and a cough.

“Think I’ll do without for now, thanks,” Logan says after a long pause, backing slowly towards his cubicle and clearly fighting a disturbed expression off his face.

Erik and Charles exchange looks, laugh, and head off to their offices.

-

Erik stays that night, and the next night, and the night after that, as well. They settle into a sort of unspoken arrangement: Erik leaves his bike at work in case of emergency midday interviews and/or trips to the hospital, and Charles drives both of them home. They switch off on dinner (and end up ordering takeout more often than they probably should), but Erik always makes breakfast. They fix the fold-out that second night, anchoring it to the floor with a remarkable contraption made of barbells, string, curtain rods, and an incredible amount of duct tape.

“I must say, it doesn’t really match the décor,” Charles observes mildly as they survey their handiwork, both their fingers red and smarting from multiple altercations with the sofa’s temperamental hinges.

“Works for me,” Erik shrugs, flopping down onto the bed and yawning hugely and stretching in a way that’s practically obscene, and, well…Charles can’t exactly argue with that, can he?

Charles is pretty sure that he’s never been happier in his life, so he can’t quite understand why his bed feels colder than ever.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra-long update today, because of reasons.

The first Saturday of Flat Mate Erik (as Charles has now taken to referring to him within the safety of his own mind), Charles wakes up to the sound of German in his living room.

Groggy and perplexed—as he is most mornings—Charles shrugs on a stray button-up tossed over the footboard of his bed and ventures out into the sun-soaked living room. There, sitting propped up on his elbows with the bed sheets pooled around his waist and a cell phone to his ear, is Erik.

“Ja,” he’s saying, his frown ferocious like Charles has never seen it, “Ja, Vater. Ich schicke das geld. Drei hundert? Ja. Okay. Ich werde mit dir reden später. Ja, auf wiedersehen.”

He sighs heavily, ends the call, and drops the phone into his lap. He stares at it for a few long moments before he looks up and notices Charles hovering hesitantly in the doorway.

“Oh, er,” Charles clears his throat, caught off guard by the strange, vulnerable look in Erik’s eyes, “Who—who was that?”

“Mein vat—damn it, sorry, my father.” Erik coughs, shakes his head slightly like he’s trying to tip all the German out his ears. “Sorry, it’s, er…it can be a bit difficult to switch back and forth sometimes.”

“No, it’s…” Charles trails off, lost for words, and eventually settles for, “I didn’t know you could speak German.”

“I don’t, mostly,” Erik says gruffly, tossing the phone down into his open suitcase and lying back against his pillow, hands folded behind his head. “But my father won’t speak to me in English. Something about preserving our heritage, I don’t know.”

“He’s right,” Charles blurts out. “The language, I mean, it’s—it’s quite beautiful, I had no idea.”

“Is it,” Erik says disinterestedly, eyeing the ceiling like it’s a particularly disreputable sort of porn magazine (quite possibly, judging from the disdainful curl of his lips, one involving animals). “I’m less interested in the language and more in what that country did to my grandparents, but…”

“I’m sorry,” Charles says hurriedly, feeling hot shame creeping up the back of his neck because _god_ he’s so stupid, why is he prying like this, why can’t he ever leave well enough alone? “I didn’t mean to-”

“Don’t panic, Charles,” Erik snorts, rolling onto his side to give him an amused look. “I’m not accusing you of being a Nazi.”

“Right, okay,” Charles nods before deciding that now would be a really great time to shut up. Instead, because he’s a reporter at heart and can never not ask more questions, he says, “Were you born there?”

Erik nods slowly, his gaze returning to the ceiling. “We lived in Hamburg until I was about four. My father was a chemical engineer, he moved us to America to find better work. My mother had to take care of all four of us by herself, he worked so hard.”

“Four of you?” Charles can’t help but raise his eyebrows; he’d always imagined Erik as an only child like himself (obnoxious stepsisters notwithstanding).

“That surprising, huh?” That amused expression is back, a half curl of the mouth and crinkling around the eyes that you would miss if you weren’t looking for it. Fortunately, Charles is.

“I was the oldest,” Erik explains with a shrug. “My younger brother is an engineer out in San Francisco, the second youngest ran a beauty parlor in New York the last I heard, though god knows what hare-brained thing she and her girlfriend are doing with their lives now. My youngest sister’s still in college at Swarthmore. She’s a good kid.”

“Wow,” Charles says, trying to keep his head from exploding at the thought of _female Eriks_.

“They’re not much like me,” Erik chuckles, as if he read Charles’ mind. “Much nicer, all three of them. But what about you, then? Any siblings you’re hiding away in the attic?”

“I’ve got a stepsister,” Charles shrugs, crossing the room to perch on the edge of his desk, legs swinging. “She works for some PR firm in New York doing I’ve no idea what. Though last I heard, she was still living with her parents.”

“ _Her_ parents?” Erik repeats, raising an eyebrow, and it takes everything Charles has not to wince because _dammit_ , why does he always do that, he _hates_ getting caught out like that, hates it when people hear that tiny distinction that he barely notices himself making.

“My mother and her father,” he clarifies in a tight voice that’s not much like his own. “They’re all still in the mansion in Westchester.”

“How’d you escape, then?” Erik asks, propping his pillow up against the armrest and sitting up slightly—clearly, his reporter instincts have kicked in, too. “Why aren’t you trapped in the mansion in Westchester with the rest of them?”

“I…” Charles chews his lower lip and decides that now is as good a time as any to come clean. After all, the man lives in his apartment now; it’s no use trying to keep any secrets anymore. _Besides_ , some deep, dark, incredibly sick and creepy corner of his mind remarks, _future husbands ought to know everything about each other_.

He kicks that voice to the back of his mind and says, “I, er…sort of got disowned.”

“Dis—wow,” Erik says, eyebrows inching towards his hairline. “I’m…I’m not sure whether to sympathize or applaud. Disowned, _wow_. I didn’t even think people got disowned much anymore.”

“Well, maybe disowned isn’t quite the right word,” Charles concedes. “It was more like disinherited, but in my family that pretty much amounts to the same thing.”

“So _that’s_ why they bought a yacht with your trust fund!” Erik chuckles, shaking his head. “Those bastards. So what’d you do to get yourself de-trust-funded?”

“Journalism school.” _And other men_ , Charles adds mentally, but he decides not to mention that particular disagreement with his parents. “They wanted me to go off to Oxford and become a doctor, but I never really had much interest. I was always a bit rubbish at maths, anyway.”

“So they disowned you for going to Columbia? Jesus.” Erik’s still shaking his head, disbelief written all over his face.

“Yes, well.” Charles feels his face slide into the grim half-smile reserved for any discussions of his parents. “That’s my mother for you. And my stepfather; the yacht was his idea.”

“And your father…?”

“Died when I was young,” Charles says matter-of-factly. It took him a long time to be able to say it outright, but it hurts less and less every time he does. He still doesn’t know whether he should be relieved or worried. “Industrial accident.”

“Oh,” Erik says quietly, his eyes flickering to fix intently on Charles’. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s quite alright,” Charles shrugs, sliding off the desk and towards the kitchen. “I think I’m going to make myself some tea, would you like any-”

“My mother was diagnosed with cancer when I was fourteen,” Erik says abruptly, stopping Charles in his tracks. That’s when it strikes Charles what he’s doing: he’s running away from this conversation because finishing it would make them closer, and he’s trying to hide behind tea but Erik’s not willing to let him. And, for once, he doesn’t let himself run; with considerable effort, he parks himself on the armrest at Erik’s feet and makes himself listen.

“She hid it from us for a few months,” Erik goes on, eyes still fixed on Charles’ like he wants him to hear this, like he _needs_ him to hear this to justify something or make him understand. “She didn’t want anyone to worry about her, what with my father working so hard and all four of us in school. But that’s not really the kind of thing you can hide for very long.”

“I’m so sorry,” Charles whispers, and is surprised to find that he really is, that he’s not just saying that, that he doesn’t just understand Erik’s pain, he _feels_ it.

“It wasn’t so bad at first,” Erik says quietly, his gaze dropping to where his hands are folding and unfolding in his lap. “She got tired a little faster than usual, but I just helped a little more around the house and things were fine. As she got weaker, I did more, and…well, explains why I was a mama’s boy, doesn’t it?” He smiles, a little fragile around the edges, and Charles feels his guts clench tighter than a knot.

“She died the day I became an American citizen.” Erik’s hands are moving faster now, folding over and under and around each other like he doesn’t know what else to do with them. “I never got a chance to tell her.”

“How old were you?” Charles asks, hardly daring to voice the question.

“Sixteen.” Erik’s voice has gone flat, his gaze stony and unreadable.

There’s a long pause, and then Charles takes a breath and says, “She would have been proud of you, I think.”

Surprised, Erik’s eyes flicker up to meet his, and Charles is caught off guard by the gratitude in them.

“She was a very strong woman,” Erik says, holding Charles’ gaze in a hypnotic grip. “Even at the end, she was always very brave.”

“I see where you get it from, then,” Charles says with a smile, and there’s a little huff of laughter as Erik’s eyes drop bashfully back to his lap.

“I don’t mean to pry,” Charles says, hesitant, after a brief pause (and Erik’s mouth hooks up in one corner because, really, he’s just heard his whole life story and what does prying even mean anymore), “But…are you sending money to your father?”

“I—you bastard, you speak German?” Thank goodness, Erik’s laughing, but it’s a shocked, disbelieving sort of laugh.

“Not very well,” Charles says hastily, waving his hands defensively. “I’m rubbish at it, really, only took a semester class as an undergrad, but I can get by, and, and I overheard…”

“Yes, I send him money,” Erik shrugs. “We all do. The man was never very good with investments, and with the stock market what it is he needs a bit of help putting Adele through school. Why?”

“Well, I mean, it’s none of my business, I know, but I, I just—while you’re still sending him money, you oughtn’t worry about finding yourself another apartment.”

“What—what are you on about, Charles, of course I’m going to find myself another apartment.”

“I just mean that…well, it’s ridiculous to expect you to find a decent apartment while you’re still sending chunks of your paycheck off to your father,” Charles says all in a rush, desperately hoping that he’s not breaking some horribly important, top secret Erik Code that he’s failed to understand. “And I—Christ, I don’t know how to say this, I don’t mean to be rude or patronizing or anything, I promise, but it’s just—you’re welcome to stay with me, you know, as long as you like. Until—until she graduates, or whenever. It’s completely fine.”

“Charles…” Erik’s eyeing him a bit strangely now, head cocked and eyes narrowed like he’s suspicious of something, “I’m not…I don’t need a handout, you know.”

“I know that,” Charles says hastily. “Of course I know that. But, but…it’s harder to afford a good apartment while you’re sending money away, am I right?”

“Ye-es,” Erik says slowly, and Charles gets the distinct sense that he’s treading a minefield here. One wrong step and this whole damn thing could blow up in his face, but he keeps going regardless.

“Then…then we can split the rent,” he says suddenly, stomach flipping with the desperate hope that he’s calculated this correctly, that this is the right way to go about this. “Just until she graduates. We can be flat mates.”

“Until she…Charles, she hasn’t even started her senior year yet.”

“So it’s just until May, then.” Charles folds his arms, trying to drag up some kind of semblance of authoritativeness. “Sounds good to me.”

“I’m not a fucking charity case, Charles,” Erik says flatly, ears reddening, and okay, he’s angry now, he’s definitely getting angry, and Charles had better say something quickly. He opens his mouth, but Erik gets there ahead of him, “I don’t need a fucking handout from you because you think you’re the fucking trust fund fairy or somethi—you don’t even _have_ a trust fund anymore, Jesus, why are you doing this?”

“Because you’re my friend, Erik,” Charles snaps, and whoa, there’s a bit more anger behind that than he expected. But maybe that’s not such a bad thing; Erik falls silent, an unreadable expression on his face.

“Besides,” Charles adds with a faint smile, “It’s not like you’re the only one getting a good deal here. I’d only have to pay half my rent, what’s not to like about that?”

“But then you’d have to live with me,” Erik says quietly, his eyes suddenly narrow and shuttered. Unspoken hangs the question: _And who would want that?_

“I’ve managed pretty well for the past week,” Charles says cheerfully, surprised at his own sudden desperation to make Erik look up, crack a smile, just _get rid_ of that dreadful vulnerability that hurts Charles to see.

And it works, sort of; Erik looks up, and the vulnerability is replaced with the usual fond irritation. “It’s only been four days, Charles.”

“All the same,” Charles shrugs, sliding off the armrest, “I think I’ll manage quite well. Though I do reserve the right to throw you out if you kick my rubbish cans down the stairs.”

“Rubbish cans—Jesus, Charles, _rubbish_ cans? Can you _be_ any more British?” And Erik’s definitely smiling now, in a disbelieving, against-his-will sort of way.

Charles just grins, puts his hands on his hips, and says in his best Buckingham Palace drawl, “Would you care for some tea?”

Erik throws his pillow at him, but they’re both laughing, breathless and a little hysterical like tension breaking.

They spend a quiet, pleasant rest of the morning doing laundry and watching television. After lunch (black bean soup out of a can, but at least it’s not dreadful Chinese takeaway) Charles goes grocery shopping and comes home to find Erik curled up on the foldout with his nose buried in one of Charles’ Terry Pratchetts. And Charles can’t help but pull out a book of his own (a collection of Neil Gaiman short stories that he’s rereading for the fifteenth time) and join him. They spend the afternoon like that, hardly moving until the sunlight streaming in through the windows has waned too much for them to see.

They make dinner together, cheerful and easy like that first night, and eat it in front of the television, which for some unfathomable reason is running an all-night spaghetti western marathon. They laugh at Clint Eastwood’s ridiculous ponchos, do horrible impressions of the most annoying characters (they both agree that Charles’ “ _Shane! Shane!_ ” may, in fact, take the cake), and, well, maybe Charles dozes off around midnight with his head resting on Erik’s shoulder, but really, who’s counting?

-

Everything only goes to shit a few weeks later.

It starts, as so many of these things do, with Logan.

Charles knows something is wrong the instant Logan knocks on his door. This is because Logan never _, ever_ knocks; it’s completely foreign to his nature, and Charles has come to accept that. Logan is a doer, not a knocker.

And yet here he is, knocking on Charles’ office door and saying, “Boss?” in a worryingly serious tone. Logan never calls Charles ‘boss’ unless he’s being very, very sarcastic. Again, Logan isn’t really the sort to have ‘bosses.’ Marginal overseers who talk to the police and pay to replace the things he sets on fire, yes. Bosses, no.

“Er, come in.” Charles saves his work on the umpteenth draft of Alex’s story about the school board meeting and swivels his chair around to face the man currently inching into his office. It’s rather difficult not to stare, actually; Logan doesn’t _inch_. “Is…is everything all right?”

“I’ve just been down at the station,” Logan says quietly, glancing over his shoulder and shutting the door behind him. “Doin’ the blotter and everything.”

“Mhmm.” Charles cocks his head. “And?”

Logan takes a deep breath, sets his jaw, and says, “I…I saw ‘em bringin’ in Tony Stark.”

It takes Charles a long while to form a reply, and when he does it’s not particularly worth the wait: “I—you—you saw them—bring him in?”

“In handcuffs,” Logan clarifies helpfully. “Not bringin’ him in like bringin’ a respected citizen in to assist in their inquiries. Bringin’ him in like arrestin’ him.”

“Yes, I understand that, thank you,” Charles says faintly, pinching the bridge of his nose like it’s the button that keeps his head from exploding.

After a pause, Logan says, “What…what’re we gonna do, boss?”

“I…” Charles braces himself, tries to ignore the frightening uncertainty in Logan’s voice. “I think Erik and I had better go down to the station.”

-

“Jesus tap dancing Christ,” Erik mutters as they get out of the car, slamming his sunglasses down over his eyes as he steps out into the glare of the police station parking lot. “I fucking hate August.”

“I can certainly understand the sentiment,” Charles sighs, undoing the second button on his shirt. He hardly ever goes beyond the first, but the situation—and the bloody heat, god, the oppressive fucking heat—calls for drastic measures. He’s already perspiring, but he’s not sure if he can entirely blame the heat.

The interior of the station is mercifully dim and cool, and both he and Erik let out an involuntary breath of relief. That relief doesn’t last long; they look up to see Deputy Barton at the front desk, boots kicked up on the scratched, stained with-god-knows-what desktop in his customary don’t-give-a-fuck pose.

“Morning, gentlemen,” Clint says calmly, not deigning to even look at them. He’s got his head tipped over the back of his chair, his eyes following the spiral of smoke from his cigarette as it rises to the ceiling. “I expect you’ll be looking for Sheriff Thor.”

“We’re actually rather more interested in a prisoner of yours,” Charles says. Beside him, he can practically see Erik’s hackles rising; Barton gets under his skin like few other people manage, and the results can be quite astonishing (and occasionally destructive, but Charles prefers not to recall that particular incident).

“Ah. That would be Mr. Stark, would it?” Another stream of smoke drifts upwards towards the spinning ceiling fan, and Erik emits a faint growl.

“If it’s not too much trouble,” Charles says, putting a restraining hand on Erik’s forearm. He can handle Clint; he’s got a sneaking suspicion that the hardened deputy has a bit of a soft spot for him, and he milks it whenever possible. Besides, Erik needs to reserve his rage. They’ll be needing it later.

“It would be my pleasure to escort you gentlemen down to see him,” Clint says in a flat voice that means it wouldn’t, “But I’m afraid Mr. Barnes may want to have a word with you two beforehand.”

“Bucky,” Charles says with a forced smile as, right on cue, the prosecutor himself emerges from Sheriff Thor’s office. “A pleasure as always, though I rather wish the circumstances were different.”

“Yeah, great to see you too, Xavier,” Bucky says disinterestedly, grabbing the back of Clint’s chair and yanking it backwards. With a yelp, Clint’s feet drop from the desk and he sprawls gracelessly onto the floor.

“Clear out, Barton,” Bucky orders, as if that particular clarification were still necessary. Clint goes, rubbing the back of his head and muttering something under his breath that sounds to Charles like _fuckin’ lawyer prick goddamn it_. He and Erik exchange a glance, and he could swear that there’s a faint light of amusement flickering in those pale blue eyes. Even under the worst circumstances, Erik still loves to see Clint Barton humiliated.

“So, gentlemen.” Bucky’s leaning forward across the desk, shirtsleeves rolled up and hands braced (rather bravely, Charles thinks, considering the troubling color of some of those stains) on the battered desktop. “I assume you’ve heard the news.”

“We wouldn’t be here if we hadn’t,” Charles points out, to which Bucky shoots him a look that plainly says, _I don’t need any of your sass, Xavier_.

“We’ve brought him in for selling a shitload of semi-automatics to the Zetas, but now that we’ve got him, we’re going after everything.” Bucky’s watching them closely, eyes narrowed. “We haven’t found anything that implicates the paper, but any records of his that you’ve got, I want ‘em. You got that?”

“I don’t give a shit about records,” Erik says before Charles can even open his mouth. “You can have the fucking records. What I care about is whether or not our paper is still going to be published after you go apeshit on Stark’s finances trying to dig up something that will get you a conviction for capital murder or whatever the fuck it is you want.”

“Look, I hate to break it to you boys,” Bucky snaps, and there’s definitely an edge of nastiness creeping into his voice, “But your little _tabloid_ is the least of my concerns right now. If we get Tony Stark, we cut the crime in this town in half within six months. So I need those fuckin’ records-”

“Fuck your records!” Erik roars, and Charles has to bite down on the inside of his cheek to keep from intervening. Whatever pull he has with Clint is completely lost on Bucky Barnes; as terrifying as it is, it’s probably best if he lets Erik handle this one.

“I’ll get a warrant, Lehnsherr,” Bucky growls, leaning still further across the desk until he’s right in Erik’s face, “ _And_ I’ll have you and all your fuckin’ reporters arrested for obstruction of justice, you got that? So think about how well your little friend here would do in prison before you tell me to fuck my records.”

Erik draws in a sharp breath, and Charles starts to wish fervently that he could just sink into the floor and disappear forever. He can feel the flush creeping into his cheeks and is pretty sure that he’s never hated anyone like he hates Bucky Barnes right now.

“I’d like to see you try, you son of a bitch,” Erik snarls, and it really is a snarl, all teeth and curled lips and feral rage.

“Your wish is my command, princess,” Bucky sneers, and Erik lets out a growl that makes every hair on the back of Charles’ neck stand on end. And, okay, that whole thing about letting Erik handle this? Well, Charles may not be much of a strategist, but he knows when it’s time to abandon a plan, and that time comes when Erik starts making angry gorilla noises at the town prosecutor. Now, he decides, would be a really great time to intervene.

“You can have the records,” he says quickly, ignoring the outraged look that Erik shoots his way. “That’s fine. We just want to talk to Stark.”

“Ah.” Bucky smiles, wide and forced, and Charles has to resist the urge to flinch away. “Your friend’s got some sense, at least. Maybe you should listen to him a little more, huh, Lehnsherr?”

“Fuck off,” Erik mutters, but Charles steps in loudly enough (he hopes) to cover it up.

“Stark, please, Mr. Barnes.” He shoves his hands into his pockets to hide the fact that they’ve clenched themselves into fists. “I’ll have someone bring over the records this afternoon.”

“Good.” Barnes nods, straightens up, and pushes open the door to Sheriff Thor’s office. “Thor! Need you to take these two down to see Stark.” He turns to walk off down the hallway, pauses, and turns around. Charles braces himself for another insult, but all the prosecutor says is, “You’ve got fifteen minutes.”

-

“I can’t _believe_ you’re letting him have the records,” Erik hisses as they follow Thor’s bulk down the dark, narrow hallway that leads to the town jail.

“I didn’t exactly have a choice, now did I?” Charles whispers back. “He was just going to make trouble, and they don’t particularly matter, do they? It’s not like we’re printing coded personal ads that tell the Mexicans where to pick up the guns or some ridiculous b-movie poppycock.”

“That’s not the point,” Erik huffs. “The point is that he is a bully and you gave in-”

“I didn’t _give in_ ,” Charles snaps, “I was _sensible_ and didn’t let him goad me into doing something stupid.”

“The man is an asshole, Charles.”

“We’ve dealt with assholes perfectly well before. It comes with the job.”

“But, god, Charles, did you _hear_ what he said about you-”

“ _Drop it_ , Erik.”

They’ve arrived at the jail, which is worryingly large for so small a town; it’s got a sizable drunk tank as well as single cells lining both sides of the hall. It’s to the end of this hall that Thor leads them, and in the very last cell on the left side is the man himself.

Tony Stark looks haggard. Well, as far as Charles can tell, anyway; the son of a bitch is wearing sunglasses. Indoors. _In jail._ Charles isn’t quite sure whether he’s got cojones the size of beach balls or is just really, really hung over.

“Gentlemen,” he says, rising just a little too quickly from the cell’s sole bench. And, okay, even with the sunglasses he looks pretty bad; his clothes are rumpled, mismatched like he yanked them on while the cops were breaking the door down (which seems perfectly plausible), his jaw dark with stubble and his hair standing out in twenty directions like he’s run his fingers through it a thousand times.

 “Tony,” Charles says faintly, “Tony, Christ.”

“I’m flattered, really, but just Tony is fine,” he says with a smirk, and out of the corner of his eye Charles sees Erik roll his eyes. He, unlike Charles, has very little patience for Stark’s shenanigans. Remember how there are only a few people who get under Erik’s skin more than Deputy Barton? Well, Tony Stark is one of them.

“Now, kids,” Tony says briskly, rubbing his hands together for all the world like they’re sitting in his sunlit office in the most modern building in Amistad (Charles knows this for a fact; Stark built it himself), “What can I do for you?”

“Don’t play stupid, Stark,” Erik says impatiently, folding his arms. “We need to know what’s going to happen to the paper.”

“Ah, the paper, the paper,” Tony snaps his fingers, pauses, and glances up at Thor. “Hey, buddy, would you mind clearing out of here? The grown-ups are talking now—aw, hey, don’t give me that look, man, it’s not like I’m gonna tell them where the treasure is buried or some shit while you’re not looking, because—well, first off because they’re not allowed to have my fuckin’ treasure, but secondly, I know there are cameras in here, okay, I paid for them to be installed myself, I _designed_ them, okay, so just give us a couple minutes, will you?”

Surprisingly enough, Thor goes, a dubious sort of frown on his face. “Ten minutes, son of Stark,” his voice rumbles down the hall, and Tony grins and rubs his hands together.

“Man, that guy,” he chuckles, shaking his head. “I fuckin’ love that guy, he’s great. Talks straight out of the Canterbury fuckin’ Tales, it’s amazing. Not a dull moment in here with Sheriff Thor around, and _man_ am I glad that we ended up with him instead of that other-”

“Tony,” Charles says gently, “The paper?”

“Oh, right, yes, the paper, yes.” Tony lets out a long breath, scrubs his hands over his face, through his hair, drops them to his sides and manages—just for a moment—to look the tiniest bit lost. “Well, as I’m sure the delightful Mr. Barnes has already informed you boys, they are going after everything I’ve got. And along with the Porsche, the Armani suits, and…oh, well, the other Porsche, that means the publishing outfit. Funds frozen, accounts closed, shop shut down.”

“Shit,” Erik mutters, pressing a fretful thumb to his temple. “Shit.”

“Hey, now, don’t overestimate the competence of our darling prosecutor,” Tony says with a grin. “I mean, it’s not like he doesn’t know this already, but there are still some accounts he _hasn’t found yet_!” He shouts this last directly at the security camera stationed in the corner of his cell, a taunting smirk fixed firmly onto his face.

“Anyway.” He clears his throat, straightens his shirt, and adds, “Those ought to keep you all going for a little while, at least. But I’d give you a week, max, before they shut those down, too.”

“A week,” Charles breathes, and it comes out worryingly close to a whimper. “But can’t…can’t Pepper do anything?”

“They got her too,” Tony says, dangerously close to a sigh, and just for a moment Charles can see the exhaustion, the guilt creeping into the lines in his face. Then Charles remembers that the bastard sells Uzis to Mexican gangsters like jelly beans in a candy shop and was arrogant enough to not to even _bother_ hiding it. He stops feeling even the least bit sorry for him pretty quickly after that.

“So…what do we do?” Charles says helplessly.

“Find another publisher,” Tony says helpfully, “And quickly.”

“Has all that gunpowder fried your brain cells, or are you actually just retarded?” Erik snaps, and all of a sudden Charles is biting down on the inside of his cheek to suppress his laughter because this is just _surreal_ , this _cannot_ be happening.

“Whoa now, easy there,” Tony says, raising his hands defensively. “You’re starting to sound like Barnes himself. Now, if you’d let me _finish_ my sentence instead of interrupting like a gigantic jerk, I would have mentioned the fact that I may be of some assistance in your search for a new publisher.”

“How so?” Charles asks quickly, heading off the angry retort he can just _see_ forming in Erik’s eyes. The last thing they need is a huffy Tony Stark; he’s dealt with it before, and the results are not pretty. He’s never seen a grown man throw a temper tantrum quite like Tony.

“I know a guy,” Tony shrugs, leaning nonchalantly against his cell wall. “He’s a good friend of mine, smart businessman, interested in getting into the publishing game. You should give him a call.”

“Does he have a name, or do you just enjoy being an enigmatic bastard?” Erik snaps, and Charles flinches and shoots him a look that plainly says _huffy Tony Stark._

“Silly Erik,” Tony chuckles, apparently too tired and discombobulated to even get huffy, “Of course he has a name. And if you think I’m gonna give it to you while I’ve got two security cameras trained on me and Bucky Barnes listening to my every word, then you’re a bigger idiot than I thought, Lehnsherr.”

“Okay, Tony,” Charles sighs, recognizing yet another personality manifestation he’s come up against before: Paranoid Tony Stark. “How do we get in touch with him?”

“Oh, that’s not quite how it works, my fine fellow,” Tony says with a smirk. “You see, he gets in touch with _you_ , not the other way around. But there is a way for you to initiate things, never fear. I know of a certain young lady who may be of some assistance to you in this particular department.”

“And _her_ name is…?” Charles raises an eyebrow.

“Oh, I’m sure you’ve heard of her.” Tony waves a lazy hand. “The real name is unimportant, but she’s known for some rather…arachnid qualities, shall we say?”

Erik and Charles exchange a look. _Oh_.

“Tony,” Charles says slowly, not taking his eyes off Erik’s, “Are you sure that this friend of yours is really the sort we want to be involved with?”

“Don’t fret your little head, Charles, he’s a great guy. A real peach, you’ll love him, don’t worry, don’t look at me like that, c’mon. Great sense of humor, too, could teach your pal Lehnsherr a thing or two.”

“Right,” Charles says quickly, putting a hand on Erik’s arm that he desperately hopes properly conveys that _no Erik you cannot punch him through the bars that is really stupid and also probably illegal_. “Thank you, Tony.”

“Oh, and one more thing,” Tony says just as they’re turning to leave. He _always_ does that; Charles is pretty sure that it’s calculated to throw people off their guard. When they look back, he’s sitting back down on his bench, his eyes turned impersonally to the ceiling as he says, “Call this a strategy tip, a…diplomatic suggestion, if you will. Once he arranges a meeting, _if_ he arranges a meeting, Charles should go. By himself. Not that, you know, Erik isn’t a lovely and charming human being and all, but Charles…Charles is right up his alley. Charles should go.”

“Right, thanks,” Charles says quickly, this time full-out grabbing Erik’s arm and towing him away from the bars. Because having his publisher arrested is bad enough; the last thing he needs is his editor in chief locked up on the same day.

-

Erik manages to remain silent all the way back through the station, past where Clint is now sitting at the front desk (boots on the floor this time, Charles notes as he gives him a friendly nod which is, of course, ignored), and out into the parking lot. But once they climb into Charles’ car, the floodgates open.

“That son of a _bitch_ ,” Erik growls, giving the dashboard an enraged slap. Charles lets out a breath and turns the key in the ignition. It’s not like this hasn’t happened before; his car has taken many worse beatings after meetings with Tony. He used to think that, being an asshole, Erik just couldn’t handle the fact that Tony was a bigger asshole than he was, but Charles has since moved on to a simpler theory: they are merely different breeds of asshole and therefore by nature incompatible.

“That fucking—I can’t _believe_ him,” Erik rages, running a hand through his hair as Charles pulls out of the parking lot. “Sitting in jail like he fucking _owns_ the place, like he doesn’t give a flying _fuck_ that his stupid bloody arrogance is going to put the fucking paper out of business, how can he—why doesn’t he _care_? That fucker didn’t even bother acting like he gave a shit, like he felt bad that because of his stupid fucking arms deals we’re not going to have a publisher anymore-”

“Though, to be fair,” Charles interjects mildly, “His stupid fucking arms deals were the reason he had enough money to publish us in the first place.”

“Yeah, and _man_ am I regretting not finding us another publisher sooner,” Erik groans. “I always knew this was going to end badly somehow, I just never got around to—Christ, how could I have been so _stupid_ , why didn’t I realize the second that Rogers announced that stupid fucking crime initiative that we were in deep shit-”

“Erik.” Charles takes one hand off the wheel and places it gently on Erik’s shoulder. “Don’t blame yourself, none of us even thought for a second—Tony Stark was untouchable, we all thought that. No one is to blame here.”

There’s a pause, and then he dares to add, “And, hey, it’s not like he’s left us high and dry.” Erik makes an objecting sort of noise, and Charles sighs and admits, “Okay, well, he kind of did, but at least we have a lead on another publisher.”

“Yeah, right,” Erik says bitterly, “Like that’s going to work out really well. What kind of fucking buddy of his is he sending us to, huh? Who’re we going to end up with next, a drug dealer? A pimp? That’d be really fucking classy, wouldn’t it? What kind of a guy are we dealing with here if Tony won’t even say his _name_?”

“He was just trying to protect us, Erik,” Charles says patiently, turning the corner onto Amistad’s main street, completely deserted in the late morning heat. “He knew that Bucky would go after anyone he suggested to us, and he didn’t want us to go through more trouble than we had to.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the incredulous look Erik is giving him, shrugs, and concedes, “Okay, so maybe he’s just a paranoid bastard, I don’t know. But you’ve got to admit, Bucky would hound the hell out of any friend of Tony’s.”

“And who’s to say he’s not having us followed?” Erik mutters. Raising an eyebrow, Charles glances up into the rearview mirror. The street behind them is completely deserted.

“Followed, Erik?” Charles repeats, a tad archly. “Who, exactly, would he have following us? Barton was behind the desk when we left, remember? And if Thor were following us, he’d be…I don’t know, he’d probably be running alongside the car or something, I don’t think he’s _capable_ of covert surveillance.”

There’s a pause, and then Erik says, very slowly, “But didn’t…didn’t Rogers get the feds in on this?”

Charles pulls to a stop at main street’s one light and looks over, wide-eyed, at Erik. They stare at each other for a very long time before the light turns green, the engine turns over and makes them both jump, and Charles says, rather too quickly, “Would you like to get some lunch?”

“Lunch?” Erik repeats, lost, as Charles pulls rapidly through the intersection. “But—but Charles, it’s only eleven thirty and we need to go talk to-”

“I really think some _lunch_ ,” Charles says tightly, driving straight past the Avenger office and towards the opposite side of town, “Would be a good thing right now. Preferably in a small restaurant in an obscure part of town with lots of winding streets and alleys and dead ends.”

“…you sneaky bastard,” Erik says, awestruck, as Charles turns suddenly down a side street. “You’re going to lose them, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know, but I’m going to do my best,” Charles says through gritted teeth, making another sudden turn. As he does, he glances up into the rearview mirror and just catches sight of a black bumper nosing around the corner he turned only seconds before.

“My god,” Erik says quietly, turning around in his seat to stare out the rear windshield, “They’re really following us, aren’t they?”

“So it seems,” Charles says absently, taking a deep, gulping breath and trying to calm his pounding heart. He doesn’t quite succeed, and after a few more reckless turns he finds himself altogether too close to hyperventilating.

From beside him, Erik glances at him curiously and says, “Charles, are you-”

“No, I’m not alright,” Charles says all in a rush, and there’s an edge of hysteria in his voice but he can’t stop talking, can’t hold back the words piling up in his mouth as he drives blindly through winding streets, “I’m not—Jesus Christ, Erik, I’m running from an FBI tail, Erik, of course I’m not _alright_! I’m a—I’m a _journalist_ , Erik, I don’t—I write about things like this, I don’t _do_ them, for god’s sake, this is just, this can’t be happening, I didn’t—I don’t—I’m just an editor, for god’s sake, I can’t be doing—why is this _happening_ to us?”

“Turn here,” Erik says suddenly, and without thinking, Charles does. In half a second, he finds himself speeding up a ramp that’s taking them-

“The _interstate_?” he nearly shrieks, foot hovering dangerously over the brake pedal, “Erik, what are you _doing_ , we can’t get on the _interstate_! This is probably illegal or something, oh my god, we’re going to be arrested, I can’t, I can’t-”

“Just drive, Charles,” Erik snaps, and for some insane, unfathomable reason, Charles shuts his mouth and does as he says.

“Now, listen,” Erik says quietly after a few moments of tense silence. “Look in your mirror. Do you see them?”

Charles looks up and takes in a short hiss of a breath because _there they are_ , a giant black SUV trailing them by just a few hundred yards.

“Oh my god, Erik,” he says in a very, very small voice. “Oh my god, we’re—what have we _done_ , I don’t understand-”

“I don’t know, but we sure as hell don’t want them on our tail if we’re going to get in touch with _her_ ,” Erik says firmly. “Now, do you see that? Up there, Charles, look.”

Squinting into the brilliant midday sun, Charles can just make out a dark shape a little ways up the highway, large and bulky even at this distance and moving extremely slowly.

“Is that…that’s a tractor, Erik,” he says slowly as the huge wheels and tiny smokestack come into clearer focus.

“Exactly,” Erik smirks, sitting back and folding his arms. “And do you see that exit sign?”

“Yes, but it’s not for another mi— _oh_ ,” Charles breathes, daring to look away from the road to give Erik an awestruck look. “And you called _me_ a sneaky bastard!”

“You’ll have to time it just right,” Erik says impassively, eyes fixed on the tractor puttering away up ahead. “I’d say that SUV is maybe…two hundred yards behind you?”

“Two hundred and fifty, I’d say,” Charles says thoughtfully, eyeing it in his rearview mirror. He steps on the gas, pulls even with the tractor, and passes it. He can see the exit approaching in the distance and feels his heart start to pound, his palms going sweaty.

“You sure you can do this?” Erik says gently, and Charles grits his teeth and grips the steering wheel like a vice.

“Oh, Erik,” he says with a grim smile, “You have _no_ idea how many hours I wasted on Grand Theft Auto in college.”

“Not so wasted now, though, eh?” Erik chuckles, and even Charles laughs at that.

“No. No, I suppose not.” With that, he gives the wheel a sudden jerk, pulling into the exit lane at the last possible minute. As they speed down the ramp, he chews his lower lip hard enough to draw blood, _praying_ that by some bizarre miracle they managed to make this work-

A horn blares through the hot, still air, followed by the faint tooting of a tractor horn. And then Erik, hanging over the back of his seat with his eyes fixed on the highway, lets out a whoop of triumph. Charles slows to a stop at a red light and lets out the breath he didn’t realize he was holding. It worked.

“Oh my god,” he says shakily, hands trembling slightly on the steering wheel. “Oh my god.”

“That was brilliant, Charles!” Erik cries, flopping back into his seat with an enormous smile on his face. “My god, that was perfect—man, what I would give to have seen their faces when they realized they were trapped behind that fucking tractor!”

“I think that’s a sight I could do without for now,” Charles says breathlessly, dropping his head forward to rest his forehead against the steering wheel. “Oh my god.”

“Man, that was so fucking great, though,” Erik laughs, drumming his fingers hyperactively against his thighs. “And you learned that from playing _video games_ —my god, Charles, I could _kiss_ you!”

Charles is suddenly very, very glad that his face is well-hidden in the steering wheel. The last thing he needs right now is Erik thinking that he’s had a stroke or something. As it is, he practically jumps out of his skin when Erik’s fingers land on his shoulder, tapping insistently.

“Green light,” Erik says simply, and Charles looks up, swallows hard, and drives. He can _feel_ Erik’s eyes on him, but he keeps his gaze fixed on the road, his face wooden.

“Jesus, Charles, you’ve gone red as a tomato,” Erik chuckles, and faintly Charles thinks, _and whose fault is that?_ “I think you need a little more excitement in your life, my friend.”

“I—I think that was more excitement than I can really handle,” Charles says faintly. “Can we go back to work now?”

“I think we have an appointment, Charles,” Erik reminds him gently, and Charles groans loudly.

“I was afraid you’d say that,” he sighs, and turns left.

-

Natasha Romanoff is not really the sort of person Charles would choose to have an appointment with. Because, she’s, well, in a word: an assassin.

Though perhaps ‘professional hit woman’ is a more correct term, but Charles isn’t really a fan of it. Call him old-fashioned, but Charles has always felt rather odd about the phrase ‘hit woman.’ Besides, ‘assassin’ is so much classier; it conjures up images of ancient Europe and the Middle East, mysterious men in hooded cloaks gliding like shadows over stone rooftops, silent feet whispering over gilded floors.

And hit man is just so…New Jersey. He thinks, at least. He’s not quite sure. Maybe Natasha _is_ from New Jersey, though it seems doubtful somehow.

The weird thing is, no one actually knows _where_ Natasha is from. The name is obviously Russian, but she speaks without a trace of an accent. Her hair is red, but Irish also seems unlikely, and god knows how many times she’s had to change hair colors to evade some form of law enforcement or other.

As far as Charles can tell, it’s just that evasion that brought her to Amistad. She’s been here ever since he has; people say they think she arrived just six months before, though no one can really be sure. He’s heard various rumors as to why she chose to settle here; Hank’s theory is that Tony Stark hired her, while Sean is absolutely convinced that she assassinated a prominent politician in Cote D’Ivoire and needed somewhere to lay low for a while. But the truth is that no one really knows, and even a roomful of insane journalists is too afraid to even _think_ of asking her. She’s the kind of person people talk about in whispers, glancing over their shoulders like she might appear behind them at any moment. She’s the kind of person who you look for behind you, not in front.

After all, she doesn’t have that nickname for nothing.

-

Still, it’s possible to find her if you know where to look.

Charles isn’t sure if he should be proud or embarrassed that he does.

They pull up in front of the diner fifteen minutes later. It’s one of the old-fashioned, prefab ones from the fifties, dusty and silver and shaped rather like a gigantic pillbox. A blinking neon sign proclaims it to be “The Be t Di er in the Southwe t,” and half a neon hamburger flashes dismally from the window. Charles pulls to a stop in the dustbowl parking lot, shuts off the engine, and exchanges a glance with Erik.

“Let’s go, then,” Erik says grimly, pushing open his door. Charles follows suit, and they step out into the blinding, hairdryer-blast heat. The diner is literally in the middle of nowhere; the empty road stretches on for miles in both directions, and on both sides of it there’s nothing but desert as far as the eye can see. Aside from a few sad, wilting flowerbeds, the only vegetation in sight consists of a few scrubby little trees and some small clumps of wiry desert grass that’s too stubborn to shrivel up and die.

“I always forget what a charming spot this is,” Charles says drily, kicking up a cloud of white, chalky dust as they make their way towards the door.

“Yeah, romantic,” Erik snorts. Fortunately, Charles can blame his sudden coughing fit on the dust.

They step inside and sit down at the nearest booth, a dingy affair with mustard-yellow pleather seats. A surly, mustached waitress jams menus into their hands and lumbers off, and they exchange uneasy glances.

“Anyone else here?” Erik asks quietly. Charles leans his head surreptitiously out of the booth and runs his eye down the length of the diner.

“Three construction workers four booths down,” he reports in a low voice, “And what looks like a homeless junkie at the counter.”

“Classy place.” Erik rolls his eyes and opens his menu. Charles does the same, and after a few minutes of quiet contemplation of the restaurant’s offerings (and trying not to think about what this is going to do to his cardiovascular system), the mustached waitress returns.

“What can I get y’all?” she asks in a voice that suggests that she doesn’t particularly care.

“I’ll have a cheeseburger,” Erik says, snapping his menu shut, “Rare. And coffee.”

 “And I’d like a grilled cheese, please,” Charles says. He swallows hard, exchanges a quick look with Erik, and adds, “And…a black raspberry shake.”

“You got it,” the waitress nods, snatching up their menus and lumbering off once more.

Charles looks dubiously at Erik, who shrugs.

“Have you…ever actually done this before?” Charles asks in a near whisper. “Arranged a meeting with her, I mean?”

“Can’t say I have.” Erik’s playing idly with a spare sugar packet that was abandoned on the table, flicking it from side to side absent-mindedly. “Never really needed to before. She usually just, you know…pops up. Whenever _she_ wants to talk.”

“Right.” Charles lets out a long breath, runs his hands through his hair. “So do you…d’you know how this works? I mean, does she show up here, or, or what?”

“Seems unlikely,” Erik remarks, gaze fixed on his sugar packet. “I think we’re arranging the appointment, so to speak. Or at least…” He pauses, glances out the window thoughtfully, “We’re asking _her_ to arrange the appointment. I don’t think it works the other way around.”

-

Lunch is, as expected, extremely greasy and not particularly delicious. The only really good part is Charles’ shake, which isn’t even what he ordered—he gets a strawberry one instead.

But the entire meal comes and goes without any sign of Natasha Romanoff, and Charles doesn’t know whether or not to be relieved. Eventually, the waitress delivers the check, and Charles automatically grabs for it, getting in just fast enough to avoid the usual scuffle that occurs every time he and Erik eat out together.

“I owe you,” Erik says, just as he says every time Charles pays the check.

“Mhmm,” Charles says, just as he says every time he pays the check. A quick glance over the scrap of yellow paper reveals nothing but the total cost for their meal (a whopping fourteen dollars and sixty-two cents), but then something catches his eye. He turns the check over, and there it is: written in the ugly waitress’s perfect, looping handwriting are four words: _your office, five o’clock._

“Ah,” he says faintly, and tries not to pass out.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter chapter this time, sorry. (Many, many thanks to all the lovelies who've been reading and commenting, you light up my life. <3)

_Calm down, Charles._

Erik’s words bounce back and forth through his brain, deafeningly loud in the uncanny silence of his office. That is, it seems rather uncanny at the moment, despite the fact that it is almost always this quiet. It _not_ being this quiet is generally a bad sign (because that usually means that someone is getting murdered out in the newsroom), but today the quietness is just downright oppressive.

It doesn’t help that the heat appears to have broken through the defenses of both insulation and air conditioning and invaded his office, making him perspire like he’s standing directly under the sun.

It’s all just bloody torture is what it is. He can barely focus on the story he’s supposed to be editing; his eyes keep flickering to the clock in the bottom right corner of the screen, which is inching dangerously close to five o’clock.

 _You don’t even know if she’s coming to your office_ , Erik’s voice repeats insistently in his head. They had a considerable argument about that during the drive back; Charles was of the opinion that since he was the one who ordered the black raspberry milkshake (the codeword, of course, for contact with Natasha), she meant his office, while Erik insisted stubbornly that since _he_ was the editor in chief, she was coming to _his_ office. Charles desperately hopes that Erik was, in fact, right, but judging from the way his luck’s been going lately it seems rather unlikely.

It’s not that he’s afraid of Natasha Romanoff, not exactly. It’s just that…well, whenever he’s encountered her before (encountered here meaning ‘caught sight of from a considerable distance away’) it’s been in a large group of people in an even larger space. He’s never met her face-to-face, never even really _seen_ her for more than a few seconds, let alone spoken to her. Let alone spoken to her one-on-one, completely alone, in a very small room where it’s quite possible that no one would hear him scream.

He stifles a groan, scrubs his hands over his face, and rubs fretfully at his tired, itching eyes. He’s been staring at this computer screen for too long; it’s time for coffee. He spins his chair around, starts to get up, and has a minor heart attack.

“Hello, Charles,” Natasha Romanoff says from where she’s perched on the windowsill—the _inside_ sill, mind you, and the window’s shut and locked—of his office.

“Jesus Chr—oh my god,” Charles splutters, slumping back into his chair and wishing desperately that he would stop hyperventilating. “H-hel, hello, Miss Romanoff, this is a bit of a-”

“Call me Natasha, please,” she says without smiling, fixing him with an impenetrable stare that makes him even more uncomfortable.

“Y-you’re, uh, you’re…you’re early,” he manages idiotically, trying surreptitiously to wipe the perspiration off his forehead.

“You need to calm down, Charles,” she says without much interest, darting a glance down at her nails. “Believe me, if I were carrying out a hit on you, I wouldn’t have wasted any time on saying hello.”

“G-good to know, I suppose,” Charles says weakly. “Erm…can, can I get you anything? We’ve got, uh, water and, uh, coffee, or I could make tea, or…” He trails off as he notices the slow, feline smile spreading across her face, and it’s astonishingly difficult not to feel like an extremely unfortunate rodent being hunted down by a particularly unsettling cat.

“Pepper was right,” she says slowly, still eyeing him like she’s deciding whether or not to eat him alive. “You _are_ cute.” He opens his mouth, shuts it again, and makes a strangled sort of noise before she takes pity on him and adds, “I’m fine. You go get your boss and we’ll talk, okay?”

“Right. Yes. Okay.” He nods, leans back in his chair, and knocks three times on the wall that separates his office from Erik’s. Natasha raises an eyebrow, but within seconds they hear Erik’s door opening and the faint tread of his shoes on the floor outside.

“Clever,” Natasha remarks. “I like it.”

Charles isn’t sure whether or not that’s sarcasm, but it promptly ceases to matter when Erik opens the door and slips into his office.

“Miss Romanoff,” he says with a nod.

“Natasha, please, Erik,” she replies automatically, crossing her legs (and Charles would like very much to believe that she knows their names from the masthead, but the all-knowing half-smile fixed permanently on her face seems to say otherwise). Erik leans up against the wall beside the closed door, and she looks from him to Charles for a few seconds before saying, “So. What can I do for you boys?”

Charles looks at Erik, who says, “You’ve heard the news about Tony Stark, I assume?” When she nods, he continues, “Then you understand that we’re currently short a publisher.”

“Tony told us that you could help us get in touch with someone,” Charles steps in. “A friend of his, he said, who’s interested in getting into the publishing business.”

“Ah.” Natasha’s nodding, looking thoughtful, which—Charles hopes—seems to be a good thing.

“I know who he means,” she says at last, reaching into one of the many pockets on her black pants (she’s dressed in head-to-toe black, form-fitting but not obnoxiously so, with her curly red hair pulled back in a loose ponytail). “And I can give you his number, if you like.”

“Thank you,” Charles says hastily, pulling a scrap of paper and a pen towards him. Out of her pocket she pulls a thin, black phone, runs a finger over its screen, and reads off a number. Charles scribbles it down, reads it back to her, and then drums his pen nervously against his desk as she stows her phone away once again.

“You just call him and set up an appointment,” she says. “I’m sure he’ll be…very interested in helping you boys out.”

“Thank you very, very much, Natasha,” Charles says earnestly, and she doesn’t quite cover up a reprise of that worrying, catlike smile.

“Don’t mention it,” she says smoothly, sliding off the windowsill and turning to go—where, Charles doesn’t know, but he’s rather worried that it involves rooftops, steep drops, and grappling hooks.

“Um,” he says, and the look Natasha gives him says that it came out far more timidly than he intended.

“Yes, Charles?” she says, an edge of sarcasm in her voice that Charles decides it is in his best interest to ignore.

“Er…Tony said-” he pauses, licks his lips, and glances at Erik, whose face has frozen into an oddly impassive mask, “Tony said something…a bit odd…”

“Yeah, he does that,” Natasha says lazily, but Charles persists.

“He said that…he said that once this friend of his had arranged a meeting, I…I should be the one to go talk to him. Why—do you know what he could have meant by that?”

Natasha tilts her head to one side, fixing him with a stare that has every prey instinct in him screaming to dive underneath the desk and pretend to be dead until she loses interest and goes away. But he stays strong, and eventually she nods slowly, thoughtfully.

“Yeah…yeah, I think he’s right,” she says finally, still giving him that appraising look. “Yeah, I think you’ll go over quite well.”

“Why?” Charles all but wails, and from behind him he hears Erik make a muffled, impatient sort of noise.

“It doesn’t _matter_ , Charles,” Erik snaps. Charles spins around in his chair to inform Erik that it probably _does_ , in fact, matter if they want to continue publishing their newspaper, but before he can open his mouth, Natasha speaks up for him.

“Oh, I think it does matter,” she says smoothly. “I think it matters a good deal. Let’s just say that…I think you’ll get along much better with him than your friend here will. In fact, Charles, if I were you, I’d be the one to make that call.”

“See?” Charles says triumphantly, but Erik just snorts impatiently and rolls his eyes. “See, she agrees that-” he turns around to gesture towards Natasha, but she’s gone.

“I—what,” he manages stupidly, and from behind him, Erik chuckles.

“She’s quite a woman,” he remarks, and Charles can’t help but nod, running his fingers through his hair.

“Yes, though rather…unsettling, I daresay,” he mutters, and Erik laughs.

“Yes, I noticed that. Not such a ladies’ man when the lady in question is an assassin, are we?”

“I’m afraid I value my life a bit too much,” Charles replies dryly, “To flirt with an assassin.”

“How very wise of you, Charles,” Erik says, and Charles turns around to find him smirking shamelessly.

“So do you think I should make the call?” Charles asks abruptly, fingers dancing nervously over the scrap of paper sitting innocently on his desk. “I mean, you’re the editor in chief and all, so maybe you should-”

“No, no,” Erik says loudly, pushing himself off the wall and shaking his head. “No, I wouldn’t _dare_ contradict the advice of the sainted Tony Stark. You make the call, Charles, since everyone agrees that you’d be so _good_ at it. Clearly, I am incapable of making a simple phone call-”

“Erik, please don’t,” Charles says quietly, but it’s too late; Erik is already turning around and throwing the door open.

“It’s _fine_ , Charles,” he snaps without looking back. “You do it. It’s fine.”

“It’s clearly not,” Charles says flatly, but Erik’s walking out the door. “Look, I’m sorry,” he calls after him, “I don’t even know what everyone’s on about! I don’t know _why_ they all want me to do it! It’s not my fault, okay, I don’t mean to, I’d be _happy_ to let you-”

He’s cut off short by Erik’s reply, which is, in true form, the slam of the door.

He lets out a noise that’s probably closer to a growl of frustration than a groan, kicks irritably at the leg of his desk, and buries his face in his hands. Next door, he hears the door to Erik’s office slam shut, and the awkward silence in the newsroom outside is practically palpable.

He props his elbows on his desk, rubs fretfully at his temples, and tries to breathe. After a few minutes, the tension has seeped out of him; they’ll deal with this at home. For now…well. He sits up, pulls the scrap of paper across the desk towards him, and picks up the phone.

-

“Hello?” The voice on the other end of the line is a man’s, low and smooth and pleasant. But what Charles finds himself jarred by is the sound of an accent that he hasn’t heard in a very long time.

“Hello,” he says as confidently as he can manage, turning the scrap of paper over and over in his free hand. “My name is Charles Xavier, and I-”

“Ah, Mr. Xavier,” the voice says, audibly pleased. “Yes, Tony told me you’d be calling. How may I help you?”

“Well, er, you could probably start by telling me your name,” Charles blurts out, then winces, realizing how spectacularly rude that sounds. But the mysterious caller just laughs, low and full and deeply amused.

“I do apologize,” the man says. “I thought Tony had mentioned it, how silly of me. My name is Loki Laufeyson, Mr. Xavier. And may I just say that it is an absolute _pleasure_ to hear someone else speaking the Queen’s in this godforsaken desert.”

“Likewise, Mr. Laufeyson,” Charles chuckles, a bit caught off guard but chuffed nonetheless. “It’s been a long time.”

“Oh, it most certainly has,” Laufeyson agrees warmly, “And call me Loki, please. All my friends do.”

“Like Tony?”

“Of course,” Loki replies, and Charles almost detects a possessive sort of purr in his voice as he adds, “Tony is a good friend. A _very_ good friend. If he didn’t have the decency to tell you my name, I do hope that he at least mentioned that.”

“He did.” Charles takes a breath— _into the abyss we go, I suppose_ —and adds, “He also said that you were a good businessman, had a good sense of humor, and were interested in the publishing business.”

“How sweet of him.” Loki laughs again, and Charles thinks absently that he’s beginning to understand what Tony meant about the sense of humor. “But I suppose it is only that last which interests you.”

“Not that the others aren’t important,” Charles says with a smile. “But yes.”

“Yes, Tony left you in a bit of a spot, I understand,” Loki says thoughtfully, almost to himself. “Well, when can we meet, Mr. Xavier?”

“Whenever’s convenient for you,” Charles shrugs. “My schedule is open for the foreseeable future, unlike yours, I’m sure.”

“So much free time for a newspaperman?” There’s a hint of a smile in Loki’s voice, and Charles chuckles quietly.

“You’d be surprised.”

“We-ell,” Loki says slowly, and in the background Charles can just make out the whisper of pages turning. “What about…tomorrow night?”

“Tomo—yes, yes, that certainly works.” Charles scribbles it down on yet another scrap of paper (the receipt for last week’s groceries, as it happens), his mind reeling slightly. It seems awfully soon, but then again, perhaps that’s a good sign. Or perhaps Loki is just a very busy man whose only schedule opening happens to be tomorrow night.

“I’m afraid I’m only free in the evening,” Loki adds. “Would seven o’clock suit you?”

“Perfectly, perfectly,” Charles nods, adding the time in his chicken-scratch handwriting.

“And have you heard of the Hellfire Club?” Charles blinks, caught off-guard yet again, and doesn’t respond, so Loki goes on, “It’s a particular favorite of mine, so if you don’t mind…”

“No, no, of course not,” Charles says hastily, jotting that down as well. “I don’t think I’ve ever been. That’s…that’s downtown, isn’t it?”

“Just off Main on Arroyo.” Charles thinks he knows the place, and can’t help but feel a bubble of doubt forming in the back of his mind. _Isn’t that a bar or something?_

Instead, he says, “That sounds good. Seven o’clock tomorrow night at the Hellfire Club.”

“See you there, Mr. Xavier.” The line clicks into silence, but Charles holds the phone to his ear for a few long moments, staring at his notes, unable to shake the doubt from his mind.

-

“So I found out why Tony wanted me to make the call,” Charles says, tossing himself into the driver’s seat of his car. Erik slides into the passenger’s seat beside him and makes a noncommittal grunting noise that Charles chooses to interpret as a desperate plea to please, please tell him more.

“He’s English, too,” he explains, turning the key in the ignition. “That’s all! Can you believe it?” He pulls out of his parking space and dares a glance at Erik’s face, which he hopes may just be softening the tiniest bit.

“And they were all being so absurdly mysterious about it,” Charles goes on, chuckling and shaking his head. “Completely ridiculous, if you ask me.”

“So who did this mysterious friend turn out to be?” Erik asks, fingers tapping a nervous tattoo on the center console.

“His name’s Loki Laufeyson,” Charles shrugs, pulling onto the main road.

There’s a pause, and then Erik says, very slowly, like Charles is suddenly exhibiting all the mental prowess of a clam, “Charles. You do know that’s not an English name, right?”

“Of _course_ I do, Erik.” He rolls his eyes but manages to refrain from adding _I’m not an idiot_ , which would probably be rather impolitic given the current, tense state of affairs. “His family’s probably Norwegian or something, god knows. But he’s got a perfect Oxford accent, so that’s what I’ve got to go on.”

“Mm,” Erik grunts noncommittally. “So what exactly does your English friend do that leaves him with money to burn on our paper?”

“No idea,” Charles admits. And, okay, yeah, he probably should have asked, but the whole conversation seemed to go by awfully fast and was rather bewildering without the added stress of asking extra questions. Perhaps, a doubtful corner of his brain points out, that was the intention, but he chooses to ignore that particular possibility.

“Brilliant,” Erik grumbles. “Just wonderful. He’s probably another goddamn arms dealer, or, or a mafia boss—an _English_ mafia boss, do they even have those? Our paper is gonna turn into a goddamn money-laundering operation all over again and-”

“Erik.” Charles pulls up short at a red light and turns to look closely at Erik with what he hopes is his best understanding-manager face on. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Erik says flatly, staring out his window and not meeting Charles’ eyes. Charles sighs; yes, obviously the fact that Erik is snapping at him and being angry and sarcastic and not looking him in the eye means that nothing is wrong—well, actually, that’s sort of true, considering angry, sarcastic, and snappish is kind of Erik’s default mode. But there’s still something inside Charles that’s insisting that this isn’t right.

“Erik…” He considers reaching for his hand—not his hand, but his shoulder maybe, but then decides that he values intact fingers a bit too much. “Look, I’m sorry if—I don’t know if I’ve offended you, or what, or if you’re upset with me, or if you’re worried about this whole thing—no, I understand that you’re worried about this whole thing and you felt like Tony betrayed you, I get that, but I’m meeting with Mr. Laufeyson tomorrow and I _swear_ that if anything feels off we can abandon the whole bloody thing and look for a publisher elsewhere. Okay?”

“The light is green, Charles,” Erik says dully. Charles sighs; if emotional evasion were soul music, Erik would be Aretha Franklin.

“Erik, _please_ ,” he says shamelessly, “I don’t understand why you’re upset, if you’d just _tell_ me-”

“Charles-”

“I know you’re uneasy about this, but I _promise_ I’ll be careful and won’t get us into another mess-”

“Charles-”

“-and Mr. Laufeyson seems like a perfectly nice gentleman so I just don’t get what the problem is-”

“ _Charles-_ ”

“-so _please_ , Erik, _please_ just tell me what’s wrong, just _talk_ to me-”

“I _am_ talking to you, Charles!” Erik all but shouts, pointing at the windshield, “And I’m telling you that the goddamn light is green!”

“I don’t _care_ , Erik,” Charles snaps. He puts the car in park, just to make sure that the message gets across. “No one comes down this road anyway, and if they do, they can…they can just go around, or something, because I’m not moving this car until you tell me what’s going on.”

“Jesus Christ, Charles,” Erik groans, dropping his face into his hands. “Jesus Christ.”

“I’m waiting,” Charles says patiently, folding his arms. If Erik is the Aretha of evasion, then Charles is the Otis Redding of stubbornness.

“Nothing is—look, I’m just…” Erik rubs his hands vigorously over his face before looking up at Charles, a bit wild-eyed and lost like some sad, feral thing that crawled half-starved out of the desert. Charles is overwhelmed by the sudden urge to take him home and put him in a shoebox lined with cotton balls until he heals enough to fly away by himself, but he quickly realizes that he is being completely ridiculous and no matter how hard he wishes, Erik is not a baby bird that’s fallen out of a tree.

“I don’t know,” Erik admits finally, dropping his hands into his lap and looking at them like he doesn’t quite know what they are. “I guess I’m just…you’re right, I’m uneasy about all of this, is all. I mean, who’s to say that some friend of Tony’s won’t be just as bad as he was?”

“You’re absolutely right,” Charles says earnestly, this time taking the plunge and putting a hand on Erik’s shoulder (which earns him a surprised glance but no growling or teeth-snapping, which is probably a good sign). “And I’m going to be very, very careful about this whole thing.”

“See, yeah, you say that,” Erik says, shaking his head, “But…look, Charles, it’s nothing against you—in fact, it’s a great thing about you, it’s what makes you good at your job—but sometimes you’re just…you’re too nice for your own good, is what you are. That’s why I’m uneasy about sending you to talk to this Laufeyson guy, you know? I’m just afraid you’re going to be…I don’t know, taken advantage of or something, I don’t know.”

“No, no, I see what you mean,” Charles says thoughtfully, even though he doesn’t, really. Him, nice? As has been previously discussed, Charles is at this point painfully aware that he is not a particularly nice person, but perhaps he’s managed to hide that fact from Erik for the past two and a half years. Then again, Erik’s “nice” sounds an awful lot like “just plain stupid,” so maybe that’s what he really means. Just plain stupid seems a lot more plausible than nice.

“Look, how about this,” he says after a moment’s thought, “I’ll bring him by the office, okay? If all goes well tomorrow and he doesn’t turn out to be a homeless crack addict or a Mexican drug lord who’s really, really excellent at faking an English accent, I mean. I’ll get him to come by the office the next day so you can meet him. So _everyone_ can meet him, before anything whatsoever has been settled.”

“Sounds fair,” Erik nods, a faint worry line etched into the space between his brows (and how Charles wants to smooth it away, wants to take that furrowed face in his hands and kiss all the anxiety off it but doesn’t, of course he doesn’t). “We’ll have to explain everything to them at some point. The staff, I mean.”

“Erik,” Charles says with a grim smile, “They’re reporters. Do you really think they haven’t figured out what’s going on yet?”

Erik just looks at him and says, “Hank.”

“Good point,” Charles says quickly, drumming his fingers thoughtfully on the steering wheel. “Well, I suppose the planning meeting tomorrow is as good a time as any. Best to let them know sooner rather than later, don’t you think?”

“Mm.” Erik nods, crossing his legs and settling back into his seat. There’s a silence populated only by their breathing and the faint chirp of cicadas outside the car. Then, Erik says, “Charles?”

“Hmm?” Charles looks at him, but he’s staring at the dashboard like he’s trying to x-ray the glove box with his eyes.

Without looking up, he says, “Could you move the car now, please?”

“Oh! Right. Yes. Right, good idea.” Charles puts the car in gear and pulls through the intersection, headlights carving a wide streak through the deepening desert night.

They have a quiet evening, mostly spent trying to cobble something together something edible out of leftovers and a half-empty bag of chips, and end up going to bed quite early for them. Charles spends a good while staring at his ceiling in the dark, kept wide awake by the tension still swimming between him and Erik. It hasn’t been this bad since the last time he brought Erik home from a bender (last October, if he recalls correctly, after a particularly nasty series of Zeta decapitations). And he’d so hoped that they’d been making progress. 


	7. Chapter 7

The next morning, everyone files into the conference room as usual, but there’s something very unusual about the silence that settles in as they all take their seats at the Round Table. Normally, Charles practically has to stand on a chair, jump up and down, and scream to get everyone’s attention (or just nudge Erik into yelling at them, which works just as well). But today, he barely coughs and all eyes are on him, the mouths that are usually talking, laughing, shouting—and, in very rare and very unfortunate occasions that usually involve the Summers brothers, biting—glued shut.

“Well, er,” Charles says, shooting a nervous glance at Erik, who just nods, “I suppose you’ve all been wondering about what’s happening with our whole, ehm…publishing…situation, what with Tony getting arrested and all that.” He pauses to run a quick eye over the faces surrounding the table, which range from curiosity to confusion to distress to the top of a head (that’s Angel, of course). Scott’s got one eyebrow raised, and Charles can just _hear_ him saying _situation Charles don’t you mean complete and utter fucking catastrophe_ , but he plunges on regardless.

“Well, there’s some bad news, and then there’s some good news.” He tries to smile, tries to clasp his hands and look managerial and in-control and who is he kidding, he’s got about as much of a clue as they do. Still, his mouth manages to ignore the hysterical monologue of self-doubt running in his brain and say, “Bad news comes first because it’s chronological. The bad news is that they’re freezing Tony’s funds and at most we’ve got a week—well, six days now, until the publishing money runs out.”

He waits to see what effect that will have, and he’s not disappointed: Logan groans and drops his head into his hands; Scott shakes his head and doesn’t quite manage to hide his anxious frown behind his sunglasses. Alex and Armando exchange unhappy looks (and Charles is almost _certain_ that they’re holding hands under the table but he manages to refrain from looking); Janos looks at Azazel, who just shakes his head and puts a hand on his shoulder; Angel drops her phone, which is a real shocker, actually, and Emma covers her mouth with her hand but doesn’t quite stifle her gasp. Moira bites her lip and tries not to look as anxious as she probably is; Hank takes his glasses off and scrubs at them furiously with his shirt, not looking at anyone else, and oh god, are those _tears_ in Sean’s eyes?

“The good news,” Charles says, a little too quickly, suddenly _desperate_ to chase the fear out of his staff’s faces, “Is that we have a lead on a possible new publisher, with whom I am going to meet tonight.” He’s made the strategic decision to omit the fact that the lead came from Tony Stark, in order to (at least temporarily) avoid any doubts about the legality, legitimacy, or sanity of the possible publisher.

“That’s…that’s great, Charles,” Moira manages with a weak smile, and that’s everyone’s cue to join in, clapping and thumping on the table and grinning just a _bit_ too widely and congratulating him just a _bit_ too loudly to cover the fact that they’re still really, really scared.

“I won’t lie to you,” Charles says after the ruckus has died down, “Nothing’s for sure yet, and we’re by no means certain that this will work out. But I’ll tell you one thing for sure,” he adds, unable to quite shake the feeling of being the coach in the locker room after a particularly bad defeat, “There is no way that I’m letting this newspaper die without a fight.”

They all cheer (well, except for Janos and Azazel, who just smile, but that’s about as close to a cheer as he’ll ever get from them), and Charles realizes that this is his cue to say more loud, inspirational things and probably thump his fist on the table or something coach-ish like that.

“Because you know what?” he says, raising his voice a little, “This is a damn good paper. You— _we_ make a wonderful thing in here, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let some idiot like Tony Stark take that away.”

Another shout goes up, and he can’t help but smile because _god_ , they actually trust him, don’t they? They actually think he’ll do it—and that’s terrifying and wonderful all at the same time, but for the moment he’d rather go with the wonderful part. And when he glances over at Erik, he’s smiling like he just might think it’s wonderful, too.

-

The closer to seven it gets, though, the less wonderful it seems. Erik goes home at six, roaring off on his bike and leaving Charles to finish up the preliminary story list for tomorrow—which, of course, turns out to entail sitting in his office trying to focus on his computer screen while glancing nervously at his watch every three minutes and getting more and more anxious with every passing moment.

 It’s half past six when Moira knocks on his door, making him jump about three feet into the air before he collects his wits, silences his fight-or-flight instincts (he’s in a newsroom, not a warzone, despite how similar they occasionally seem), and calls, “Come in!”

She does, shutting the door behind her and frowning in a gentle, concerned way that makes him want to dive underneath his desk. Feelings are just about the last thing he wants to discuss at the moment, but when Moira’s making that face, feelings discussions are almost inevitable.

He turns out to be, as usual, correct: the first words out of her mouth are, “Is everything okay with you and Erik?”

“Hmm?” He blinks at her like he hasn’t been wondering the same thing for the past twenty-four hours—okay, no, two years if he’s really being honest, but that’s beside the point.

“I, uh…I saw him drive off on his bike,” she explains, sliding into the chair in front of Charles’ desk that makes him feel horrible headmasterly whenever anyone sits in it. “I…I thought you guys were, um…rooming together now? Are you having a…an argument or something? Is everything alright?”

Charles, who has by no means missed the long pauses before _rooming together_ and _argument_ , shakes his head and laughs like the very _thought_ of them having a quarrel is completely absurd and not like they do, in fact, argue over everything from headlines to adopting an office pet (Charles lobbied hard but never quite managed to wear Erik down on that one).

“Oh, heavens, no,” he chuckles, and even to his own ears it sounds fake. “I just need the car tonight; I’m meeting with our prospective publisher at seven, you see, and Erik wanted to get home early and start on dinner.” That last bit is, in fact, a complete and total falsehood; Erik left in a rather mysterious huff after Charles told him that he might be a bit late and he shouldn’t wait up, but that fact would not exactly help prove Charles’ point.

“There did seem to be an awful lot of shouting and door-slamming yesterday,” Moira points out gently, and Charles clenches his hands under his desk and wishes that his employees weren’t so damned _perceptive_.

“Just the stress, love,” he shrugs, and at least that’s _partially_ true. “You know how he is.”

“Mm.” She’s looking at him with her head cocked to one side, and Charles braces himself for whatever’s coming next because the feelings face is back. Once again, she doesn’t disappoint, leaning forward slightly and saying, “It must be hard.”

“Hwuh?” His response is not particularly articulate, but at least it pretty clearly conveys his feelings at the moment. Actually, his feelings at any given moment can most likely be summed up as _hwuh_ , but that is, once again, beside the point.

“I know what it’s like,” she adds as if he hadn’t spoken. “I’ve been there plenty of times, more than I’d like to admit.”

He’s blinking at her slowly, uncomprehendingly, a faint, concerned frown creeping onto his face. It’s not often that he can’t actually understand what Moira’s talking about (aside from that one, dreadful time that she had tonsil surgery and discovered that Oxycontin _really_ did not agree with her), so this is rather worrisome.

“You know, I had such high hopes for you,” she says without rancor, the unconcerned tone of her voice contrasting jarringly with her words. “I mean, jeez, it’s exciting enough when a new guy shows up around here, and one from New York City? No one shut up about it for weeks after Erik told us, and once you finally showed up? Well, gosh, I mean, you were well-dressed and charming and _British_ , even. How much better could it get?”

“Ah,” Charles says very, very faintly; he’s got a sudden, dreadful idea of where all this is headed, and he doesn’t like it one bit.

“But then I started to wonder,” she goes on, staring thoughtfully down at her folded hands. “I mean, I didn’t—I didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but, well, I noticed the cardigans and the sweater vests, and—and the shoes, and you never mentioned any girlfriends and _completely_ ignored Emma’s advances-”

This is about where Charles’ brain function completely shorts out because _what_? Emma’s _what_?

“Oh, don’t look so surprised,” Moira scoffs, catching sight of his evidently dumbfounded expression. “She tries it on every new guy who walks into the office. She’s _been_ trying it on Erik for years, if you haven’t noticed.”

“Oh, I have,” Charles mutters without meaning to, and only realizes once it’s too late that he’s basically making Moira’s case for her.

“See, and then there’s _that_ ,” she chuckles, shaking her head like she’s the biggest idiot ever to exist while Charles wonders exactly what “ _that”_ means, “And then I saw how you were with those stray kittens, and _that_ pretty much sealed the deal.” She sighs, sitting back and folding her arms. “So I know how you feel, and it’s not much fun.”

“How I feel about _what_?” he finally bursts out, hoping desperately that he doesn’t already know the answer. Unfortunately, she’s looking at him like he’s a complete idiot, so that means that this all has something to do with…

“Erik, of course,” she says as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world (and Charles is pierced by the sudden fear that it actually _is_ ).

“I don’t know what you-” he begins stiffly, but she rolls her eyes and interrupts.

“Oh, come _on_ , Charles, don’t be such an old man. I just told you, it didn’t take me long to figure out that you were gay, and from there it didn’t exactly take an enormous leap of logic to get to your feelings about Erik. I mean, the way you _look_ at him-”

“Moira, I’m not sure this is an appropriate discussion for-” Charles begins nervously, but she cuts him off once again.

“Nonsense, Charles, you’re being silly. Now, if you ask _me_ , he’s-”

But Charles isn’t listening anymore; his eyes, in their desperate search of his office for a suitable means of escape, have alighted on his watch, which reads a quarter to seven. His heart does a small, sickening somersault in the back of his throat as he stands abruptly, snatching his car keys off his desk as if Moira might steal them and trap him here forever while she waxes philosophical on the subject of men.

“I’m sorry, Moira,” he says hurriedly, stowing his keys in his pocket and shrugging on his cardigan, “But I’m afraid I’ve got to go meet our prospective publisher. Perhaps we could continue this, erm, fascinating discussion at a later time-” he makes a mental note to avoid Moira at all costs for as long as possible, “-because I’ve got to go.”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” she says brightly, getting to her feet as well. “Of course. Good luck.”

“Thank you,” he says absently, tossing his messenger bag over his shoulder and making what he hopes isn’t too obvious of a run for the door. The moment his hand touches the handle, though, a pang of remorse shoots through him—Moira really is a sweet girl, after all, and she’s just trying to help. He turns back to find her leaning against her desk, watching him thoughtfully.

“Look, I’m really sorry if-” he breaks off, licks his lips, tries again, “I mean, I never meant to-”

“Of course not, Charles, don’t be an idiot.” She laughs, tucking her hair behind her ears. “There’s no reason for you to apologize to me. You just worry about Erik now, alright?”

She winks broadly at him, and he has to stifle the urge to flee like a startled rabbit and force himself to call out a cheery “Good night!” before dashing out to his car, hoping that she thinks he’s in such a hurry because he’s running late.

-

The Hellfire Club is surprisingly swank for Amistad; it is, as far as Charles can tell, a remnant of the days when the town tried unsuccessfully to transform itself into a tourist attraction. Still, the place has remained popular with the more well-to-do locals with cosmopolitan pretensions. It’s tucked into a pecan grove (very unusual for these water-starved parts where the most common trees are palms) just off Main Street, its glass and brick exterior warmly lit and welcoming in the dusk.

He stays in the car for a few moments after parking it, checking his hair in the fold-down mirror and trying to calm his thundering heart. After a moment’s consideration, he ditches the cardigan, rolls up his sleeves, and undoes the second button on his shirt. Rather daring of him, doubtless, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Besides, having a few buttons undone makes him look less like a stuffy old man, and—dear god, why is he fussing so much about this? It’s a _business meeting_ , for god’s sake. He decides that, as usual, he’s being ridiculous, and gets out of the car.

The evening is hot and still as he makes his way across the parking lot, so the blast of air-conditioning that greets him when he opens the club door is entirely welcome. Still, as he steps inside the darkened interior, he shivers a little and wishes vaguely that he hadn’t left his cardigan behind.

As his eyes adjust to the dimness, he takes note of the bar, a long, sleek, wood and glass affair that entirely dominates one side of the room. The other is taken up by discreet little booths, each graced with a squat candle that casts warm, flickering light over the red leather seats.

“May I help you, sir?” a waitress asks (thin, dark-haired, no trace of a Southern accent; clearly, they don’t just hire anyone here).

“Ah, yes.” He clears his throat, adjusts his collar slightly. “Sorry, I’m looking for a Mr. Laufeyson?”

“Right this way, Mr. Xavier,” she nods, leading him down the length of the room (and past some rather intriguing-looking doors that he assumes lead to private rooms) to the very last booth. Charles is still looking around him at the obviously well-stocked bar and the round tables scattered across the remaining floor space when a voice makes him jump.

“Mr. Xavier,” the voice from the other end of the telephone line says from the shadows in the booth. When Charles looks back, the voice is attached to a foot, a leg, a shoulder, a whole body sliding out of the booth, and finally a hand reaching to shake his.

“Mr. Laufeyson,” he says as warmly as he can, moving forward to take the proffered hand and get a good look at this prospective publisher.

Loki Laufeyson is…not what he expected, to say the least. He’s tall—or taller than Charles, at least, which is what counts—and impossibly thin, all sleek lines and perfect angles and quick, fluid movement, which is only accentuated by his impeccably tailored black suit and fine, sharp shoes. His face is pale, thin, and elegant, and the flickering candlelight slides over high cheekbones and dances in a pair of quick, green eyes framed by dark, arched brows. His hair is equally dark, almost ink black, and combed back from his forehead and temples to turn up at the nape of his neck like a bird’s feathers. The hand shaking Charles’ is pale with long, clever fingers, its grip firm, cool, and dry.

“Loki, Mr. Xavier, I told you,” he reminds him with a smile that flashes like quicksilver. That, Charles thinks dimly as he slides into the booth, is the smile of a very, very dangerous man. He’s struck by the sudden feeling that that smile was the last thing that a good many people ever saw, but banishes the thought as preposterous and turns his full attention to the man sitting opposite him.

“Then call me Charles,” he smiles back, propping his elbows on the table and leaning forward (frightfully bad manners, of course, and his mother would be shocked, but he’s always found that friendliness and manners do not necessarily go hand in hand).

“What a pleasure to meet you at last, Charles,” Loki says, voice smooth as silk, and Charles doesn’t miss how his eyes flicker briefly down to his exposed collarbone. Charles is seized with a sudden urge to button his shirt up to his chin but ignores it; bursts of irrational modesty are not particularly unusual for him, and he’s learned to disregard them as mere unfortunate echoes of a repressed upbringing.

“Of course, I’ve followed your work for some time,” Loki’s saying, folding his hands on the table, piercing green gaze fixed on Charles’ now rather flushed face. “So it’s rather exciting to finally see the lovely face behind the lovely words.”

“Please, Loki,” Charles chuckles, ducking his head self-consciously, “You’re too kind.”

“Not in the least,” Loki says firmly, waving over the dark-haired waitress. “What do you drink, Charles?”

“Oh, I really shouldn’t-”

“Nonsense. The bar here is excellent; none of that dreadful tequila stuff that those hoodlums guzzle out in the desert.”

“Well, I-” Charles has to pause to stifle his grin, because Loki is just so wonderfully _English_ and it’s so refreshing he almost can’t bear it. “I’ll have a gin and tonic, please.”

“And I’ll take scotch. On the rocks,” Loki adds. The waitress nods and goes on her way, and he turns back to Charles.

“So tell me.” Loki’s gaze is fixed on him once more, eyes startlingly sharp in the dimness of the booth. “How on earth did an Englishman like you end up in this dreadful place?”

Charles shrugs, smiling faintly. “It’s a bit of a long story, I’m afraid.”

“I’ve got time,” Loki counters, crossing his legs and leaning back. “Tell it.”

“Well, I was born in England,” Charles begins, half mesmerized by the rapt attentiveness on Loki’s face. “Just outside of Hertfordshire, actually. My father moved us to New York when I was…oh, eight, I think? I spent the rest of my childhood in Westchester, then moved to New York City after university and got a job at a paper down there. But I got laid off pretty quickly—bad years for big newspapers, you understand, what with the internet and everything—so when Erik offered me work down here, I came.” He shrugs again. “Not terribly exciting, I’m afraid. What about you?”

“I’m from Norway originally, actually,” Loki says, smiling faintly at Charles’ raised eyebrows. “And before you ask, no, I don’t know Judge Odin or Sheriff Thor. We all just seem to end up down here. Maybe it’s the climate.” He chuckles, and Charles can’t help but smile, too. “Anyway, I grew up in Norway—learning to speak English the whole time, of course; Norwegian, I’m afraid, is a rather useless language outside of the country. I went to Oxford for university, though, which is where the accent formed.”

“I knew it!” Charles says triumphantly. “I was just telling Erik yesterday that you had the loveliest Oxford accent.”

“Spot on, my friend,” Loki chuckles. “So from there I made my way to America, and then it was only a matter of time before my work brought me down here.”

“And what, exactly, is it that you do? You must understand,” Charles adds apologetically, “That we got into a bit of a fix thanks to Tony’s, erm, trade, so it’s quite important that we-”

“Of course, of course,” Loki nods, just as the waitress returns and sets their drinks down. “Yes, that’s all, thank you,” Loki tells her absently before turning back to Charles. “I’m afraid that my business is not nearly as exciting as Mr. Stark’s; I run a shipping company that transports goods to and from Mexico. Grain, petrol, lumber, those sorts of things. Though,” he adds, leaning forward with a conspiratorial smile, “I must admit, we do a tiny bit of smuggling on the side. Would you like to know what?”

“Would I?” Charles says faintly, his heart sinking into his stomach because god _damn_ it, just when things were sounding so splendidly dull and normal and non-illegal…

“Shoes,” Loki says, sitting back with a grin as Charles frowns because _what_? Surely, they must be packed full of drugs or money or guns—would guns even fit into shoes? Maybe very, very small guns…

“Books, too,” Loki adds, taking a delicate sip of his drink. “Schoolbooks, I mean, for the children who live in some of the tiny villages on the Mexican side of the border. Those villages are three hours from the nearest decent-sized town, and they used to rely completely on American tourists going over and eating lunch and buying ugly jewelry. But when they closed the borders after 9/11, the tourism dried up, so now those places are practically ghost towns. So we take them shoes and books and candy whenever we can.” He shrugs. “Not strictly legal, I suppose, but it’s the least we can do.”

“I think it’s lovely,” Charles says earnestly, unable to conceal his grin. He can’t _wait_ to tell Erik about this. A completely legal, legitimate publisher who not only makes money that he can report to the IRS but donates shoes to impoverished Mexican children. Oh, Erik’s going to be _so_ pleased.

-

“Oh, _must_ you, Charles?” Loki says plaintively as Charles rises—perhaps a mite unsteadily, but no, it was only two gin and tonics, he’s fine, _fine_ —from his seat.

“I’m afraid so, Loki,” he says with an apologetic smile. “Work tomorrow, unfortunately, so I can’t stay out all night.” Loki gets to his feet and they walk side by side to the front of the club (and Charles doesn’t miss the _looks_ , the curious stares, the appraising glances at this raggedy little reporter consorting with the likes of Loki Laufeyson).

“I have so enjoyed talking with you,” Loki says earnestly—well, not earnestly, he’s too elegant to be earnest, but at least his smooth, laid-back voice sounds sincere. When Charles moves to open the door, Loki gets there first and holds it open for him, and, okay, that definitely brings an unbidden flush surging into his cheeks because what a _gentleman_ this man is.

“So have I, my friend,” Charles says as they step out into the warm evening air. “And, really, you must come by the office tomorrow. I’m sure Erik will be dying to meet you—no, _everyone_ will be dying to meet you, this is so exciting for us.”

“And for me, my dear Charles,” Loki says with a smile, and—okay, that’s his hand landing on Charles’ forearm, that’s a bit forward and yet somehow wonderful, because Charles hasn’t been treated like this in a very long time and it’s really sort of lovely. “I would be delighted to meet your staff tomorrow. Oh, is this your car? Ah, you’ve parked right next to me!”

They stop beside Charles’ battered sedan, which now looks like a complete beater next to the sleek black motorbike parked in the spot beside it. And Charles can’t help but stare, even though really, what else would Loki Laufeyson drive? He’s just one of those motorbike people, just like Erik—only this bike, Charles can’t help but notice, is _much_ nicer than Erik’s, sleeker and more aerodynamic without a single chip or scratch on the raven-dark paint job.

“Well,” Loki’s saying, completely oblivious to Charles’ rather ostentatious ogling of his bike, “It’s been a pleasure, an absolute pleasure.”

“It certainly has,” Charles agrees fervently, taking Loki’s proffered hand (and either he’s going completely mad or Loki’s grip is a bit firmer, a bit warmer, a bit friendlier than it was the first time).

“It’s so lovely to meet someone _civilized_ in this barren place,” Loki says, not releasing his hand.  Charles just nods, although privately he’s thinking that he knows some perfectly civilized people here, everyone who works for him is civilized—well, okay, maybe civilized isn’t the right word, but they’re not savages—well, at least they’re not _animals_ or anything.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Loki,” he says instead, and he has to admit, he’s more excited about that than he’s been about anything in a good while. Loki swings one leg over his bike and unhooks his helmet from the handlebars, and Charles nearly trips over himself as he climbs into his car because Christ, could the man get _any_ more attractive? He has, Charles thinks absently, some weird thing about men on bikes, and returns Loki’s wave heartily as he closes his car door. The black bike speeds out of the parking lot—completely silent, Charles notes, and _god_ it’s like a moving shadow and he’s never been so attracted to a vehicle in his life—and Charles’ dinky little blue car follows it.

The bike quickly outstrips him and disappears into the night, but Charles can’t quite bring himself to care. There’s a Beatles song on the oldies station, and yes, Charles listens to the oldies station and he is aware that he’s an octogenarian on the inside but the music they play is really good once you get past the senile hosts rambling for five minutes about the good old days of Bobby Darin. He taps his fingers on the steering wheel and sings along—off key, of course, because he could not carry a tune in a bucket unless it was a really large one, but his car’s used to the dreadful singing by now and besides, it’s the Beatles, who even cares if he’s in tune?

He’s driven almost all the way back to his apartment when he realizes that Loki never paid their bill.

-

He finds Erik watching TV in the dark, the blue light of the screen flickering across his wife beater (that damn wife beater that Charles cannot take his eyes off of, that insists on clinging so closely to that well-muscled chest and flat stomach) and cloudy expression that only grows more thunderous when Charles opens the door and flips on the lights.

“Well, don’t look at me like that,” Charles says to Erik’s glare, which is rather less effective when he’s peering over the back of the couch like a petulant child whose mother just told him to turn off the Muppets. “It was dreadfully dark in here, in case you didn’t notice, and knowing me I probably would have tripped over something and given myself a concussion and that would have just been dreadful, so…”

He sets his satchel down on his desk and frowns; it seems rather unlike Erik to scowl so ferociously just because Charles turned on the damn lights. He’s not exactly great at this sort of thing, but something tells him that feelings are afoot and he ought to act accordingly.

“Is everything alright?” he asks carefully, which only results in Erik’s face completely shutting down. As if that’s not enough, he turns back to the television, which is broadcasting what appears to be a documentary about natural gas extraction in Canada (though that’s just Charles’ guess formed from a quick glance, so for all he knows it could be _Dance Moms_ ).

“Spectacular,” Erik grunts. “How was Laufeyson?”

“Oh, um,” Charles blinks, caught a bit off-guard, “He was brilliant, actually. Turns out he is Norwegian—oh, and I was right about the accent, he went to Oxford—and he runs a shipping company that runs petrol and lumber in and out of Mexico, and, and—can you believe it, Erik, he donates shoes and schoolbooks to impoverished Mexican children!”

“Sounds like a real saint,” Erik says dully, eyes fixed on an intricate diagram of water shooting through some pipes that go deep into the ground (so, okay, it’s probably not _Dance Moms_ ).

Charles opts for a tactic that he’s used with moderate success in the past and completely ignores Erik’s sarcasm in favor of flopping into his desk chair and spinning around once or twice (and if Erik’s a sulky Muppet-deprived child then Charles is an overexcited one who just found out that Kermit is about to move in next door).

“I really think you’ll like him, Erik,” he says with more conviction than he feels; Loki’s a wonderful guy and all, but Erik’s stubbornness knows no bounds. “He’s very charming, very intelligent, and—oh, I nearly forgot, this is so brilliant: he rides a motorbike!”

That, at least, gets Erik to look up, but his expression is not quite what Charles was hoping for: instead of the pure delight he’d expected, Erik’s face reads nothing but irritation.

“I ride a motorbike too, Charles,” he says huffily—and huffy is a word that Charles hesitates to use with Erik, but in this case it’s weirdly appropriate.

“I _know_ that, Erik.” He rolls his eyes; for such a smart man, Erik can be incredibly dense when he wants to be. “I thought you’d be excited to meet a fellow motorcyclist. Maybe you two can bond over…engine parts or something, I don’t know. Motorcycle things.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a plan,” Erik sneers, getting abruptly to his feet, and _Christ_ , does he practice looming in his spare time or something? He should probably be a professional loomer, some bizarre section of Charles’ brain observes while the remaining portion orders it to shut up so it can focus on what Erik says next.

“That sounds really fucking great, Charles,” he’s nearly _snarling_ , striding past where Charles is still sitting, frozen, open-mouthed like some really grotesque fountain statuary. “And while you’re at it, why don’t you just-” He freezes, chin just inches from the top of Charles’ head, his nose wrinkling and reminding the persistently irrelevant portion of Charles’ brain of an extremely irritated rabbit.

“Have you been drinking?” Erik demands suddenly, and he only needs to glance at Charles’ face, which, Charles is afraid, is fixed into the sullen, defiant look that he learned when he was ten and his mother caught him reading a particularly obscene Allen Ginsberg poem and actually cared for once. It’s a look that says _I know you think I’ve done something wrong but I don’t think it’s wrong because I am the supreme authority on my own morality so piss off because I will go to my grave insisting that it was the right thing to do_ —or so Raven always said, at least. Charles is rather inclined to disagree, but he’s always had a sneaking suspicion that she was right.

“Oh, for _Christ’s_ sake,” Erik snaps, “I thought this was a business meeting, what the hell were you-”

“We discussed business over drinks,” Charles retorts, ignoring the guilty memory of his and Loki’s extended conversation about country music and really wasn’t that just the _tackiest_ thing and what was the deal with that Taylor Swift person anyway and American pop culture was really just the _worst_ , wasn’t it, “Which is something that _civilized_ people do in _civilized_ places-”

“Oh, so I’m _uncivilized_ , am I?” Erik’s sneering again, and Charles is startled by the ugliness of it, the stark derision of his curled lip and arching eyebrows. “I suppose I’m too dirty and American for you now, is that it? I guess I should just roll around in the dirt with all the other fat, hamburger-eating, gun-toting savages while you and your Oxford friend drink tea and look down your noses at all of us, right?”

“For god’s—that’s not what I—I didn’t mean-” Charles subsides into a flustered silence, struck completely speechless because this is so _unfair_ , he hasn’t _done_ anything and he didn’t _mean_ that and why is this happening, why are they fighting, he didn’t do anything wrong and Erik’s just standing there glaring at him and being a gigantic—actually, he realizes, what Erik is doing is staring at his neck, which is making him feel dreadfully flushed and self-conscious.

“My god, Charles, your button,” he says in a very quiet, very dangerous voice, and before Charles can stop himself he’s grabbing for his collar and pulling it closed, realizing only too late just how guilty it makes him look. And this is _completely_ ridiculous, what is _happening_ here, he hasn’t even done anything and Erik is still making him feel like a dreadful cheating husband and this doesn’t even make _sense_.

Suddenly beyond irritated, he snaps, “ _What_?” And the hostility of it surprises even him, and Erik recoils for just a second before firing back.

“What—what do you mean, _what_? Jesus, Charles, was this a business meeting or a _date_?”

What Charles says next is really, really stupid. The sensible answer, he realizes three seconds after opening his mouth, would have been _of course it wasn’t Erik please calm down why are you so upset about this please explain to me what I’m doing wrong I’m so so sorry I really don’t mean it_ —all said, of course, in his calmest, sweetest, most pacifying tone.

But he’s upset, and he’s tired, and he’s flustered, and, okay, he’s had a couple drinks, and Erik was staring at his neck and it’s still freaking him out quite a bit more than it should. So instead of that nice, sensible answer, he folds his arms across his chest and huffs, “Who made you the morality police, then?”

Erik opens his mouth and closes it a few times, going incredibly red in the face. Charles, for his part, manages to keep himself from wincing at the sheer stupidity, the sheer juvenileness of his words. But, you know, maybe he has a right to be juvenile; Erik certainly is, all moody and snippy and attacking him for absolutely no reason. Maybe, for once in his life, Charles doesn’t have to be the grown-up or the peacemaker or the perfect, level-headed diplomat. For once, he’s going to get properly angry.

“You know, Erik, I just don’t understand what your problem is,” he says loudly, getting to his feet, and, okay, that’s not a particularly good start to properly angry, but maybe he can work his way up to it. “I have done _absolutely_ nothing wrong—no, I have been trying like _mad_ to find us a new publisher, and what do I get for it? You have done nothing but criticize me from the start, and now that I’ve found a lovely, charming, wealthy, _legal_ man who wants to publish our paper, you can’t even find one damn good thing to say! Some bloody thanks that is!”

Erik looks at him for a long, long moment, eyes narrowed in what may just be his most dangerous expression. And then he says, almost too softly, “I’m just trying to make sure that you’re not doing anything…rash to ensure that we get a publisher.”

“What,” Charles says, and the word comes out so cold that his tongue might have just gotten frostbite, “Are you implying?”

“Well, Jesus, Charles,” Erik snaps, throwing his hands up into the air like Charles is some kind of lost cause runaway child who won’t get his act together and stop sleeping with everything he sees, “You come home smelling like booze with, with your shirt halfway open, telling me about this _lovely_ man that you met and he’s _so_ charming and he rides the most _wonderful_ motorbike and did I mention that he gives toys to starving Mexican children and oh he’s just the _best_ and he bought me drinks because we’re _civilized_ and he’s so _lovely_ , you’re just going to _love_ him, Erik, really-”

It’s right about then that Charles snaps. Because this is…this is just _unbelievable_ , is what this is. The fact that Erik would even _think_ that he would…that he would _ever_ do something like that, that he would ever, in essence, sell himself for a publisher…not only is it the most ridiculous thing that he’s ever heard, it’s also incredibly insulting. He opens his mouth to tell Erik just that, but what comes out is, “Oh, for _god’s_ sake!”

He’s not quite sure how to follow that up, but he can’t actually stomach the idea of standing here much longer with Erik’s eyes burning into him and that disgusted look—no, it’s not even disgusted, it’s _betrayed_ and how does that make _any_ sense—on his face. So he does what he does best: run.

He’s halfway to his bedroom door when he hears the clatter of his desk chair hitting the wall, and it’s only then that he registers that his wrist is saying _ouch_ and his brain is saying _you idiot you just punched a chair_. But maybe that’s not such a bad thing; a stunned silence follows him all the way through the door.

It’s only once he’s slammed the door shut, flung himself down onto his bed, and fumed for a few minutes that he realizes that he left his satchel in the other room.

“Shit,” Charles mutters, running his hands down his face. Well, he can’t exactly go back in there, can he? A sheepish return to collect his papers and laptop would certainly diminish the effect of his dramatic exit, and he’s not entirely sure that he could actually face Erik again without screaming, choking in rage, or physically abusing more furniture (and frankly, his poor, battered furniture doesn’t deserve to be the outlet for his ire).

That last thought is all that keeps him from giving his bed a belligerent kick, so instead he gets to his feet, straightens his sweater, and looks around for something to read. After a few minutes of half-hearted rummaging through the various odds and ends scattered across his room, he settles for a nine-month-old issue of Time magazine, chosen from the newsstand solely because it examined a border-related issue that looked like it might be interesting for the Avenger to cover.

It turns out not to be as interesting now, and he pages through the wrinkled magazine for a few idle minutes before giving up entirely and flopping over backwards to lie spread-eagled on his bed. He settles down to a few mindless minutes of contemplating the ceiling and wishing that his hands would stop shaking quite so much.

Those few minutes turn into at least half an hour, at the end of which he finds his eyelids drooping and his mind begging to be shut off. With a sigh, he forces himself to sit up, reach over, and turn off his bedside lamp. After conjuring up an enormous amount of self-control, he strips off his shirt and pants, tossing them aside before collapsing back against his pillow.

And then, of course, he can’t sleep.

After tossing and turning, trying desperately to coax back the drowsiness that abandoned him just minutes ago, he finally gives up and resumes staring at the blackness that was once his ceiling.

He keeps telling himself that it’s definitely the murmur of the television in the next room that keeps him up until the early hours of the morning.


	8. Chapter 8

He wakes up the next morning to an empty apartment.

After his heart leaps halfway across the living room when he looks around through the morning haze and sees the foldout abandoned, he slumps against a kitchen counter, fiddles with the kettle, and tries desperately to stave off the panic he can feel swelling in the back of his throat. He doesn’t care. He _doesn’t care_. Erik is perfectly free to run off and pitch a hissy fit if he pleases; Charles, on the other hand, is much more reasonable. Charles is just going to drink his tea and take a shower and get dressed like a responsible adult because _he doesn’t care_.

He’s still telling himself that, running it endlessly back and forth through his head like a mantra, when he arrives at the office. His own body, however, gives him away: his heart does a back flip when he catches sight of Erik’s motorcycle in the parking lot.

It’s right about then that Charles decides that this shit needs to stop. This fight is…well, aside from being utterly ridiculous because he hasn’t _done_ anything, it’s also dreadfully stressful. He can’t sleep (he dozed and woke in fits and starts that left him more exhausted than he was when he lay down), can’t eat (he went without dinner last night and barely noticed), can’t drive (the new rosebush-shaped scratch on his car attests to that quite clearly), can’t even drink his bloody tea (his hand is still throbbing; scalding hot Irish Breakfast is not a particularly excellent thing to dump all over yourself).

In short, he can’t force his mind to focus on anything other than the dreadful image of Erik lingering stubbornly in his brain, those folded arms and narrowed eyes and thin, disapproving mouth burned into his corneas. There is no way that he’s going to be able to get any work done in this state.

There’s nothing for it: he’s got to apologize.

-

It’s a long walk across the newsroom to Erik’s office, made still longer by the stares that follow him all the way. He doesn’t understand it; he’s their _boss_ , why are his employees capable of making him feel like a teenager who can’t find a seat in the cafeteria? Taking a deep breath, he holds his head high, ignores the heat creeping up the back of his neck, and—stops dead as a wheelie chair shoots unexpectedly into his path.

“Hey, boss,” Scott says, and of _course_ it’s Scott, it just _has_ to be Scott, doesn’t it? “What’s, uh…what’s going on?”

“I’m a little busy right now, Scott,” Charles says through his teeth, because it takes inordinate amounts of patience to deal with Scott on a good day, and, just in case it’s not obvious, today is a very _not_ good day and if Scott’s not out of his way in the next two seconds that wheelie chair is going straight out the window.

“Erik looks mega pissed,” Scott informs him helpfully, but at least he has the good sense to scoot himself back into his cubicle. “Did Alex mix up effect and affect again?”

Privately, Charles thinks Scott sounds far too hopeful, but he just shakes his head and hurries past. “No,” he says over his shoulder, and can’t resist throwing in a parting shot: “But I’d double check that drug bust story of his, just to be sure.”

Scott nods and turns back to his computer with rather more enthusiasm than seems appropriate, and Charles continues on his way, stifling a sigh. Quite frankly, editing Alex’s drug bust story sounds like a picnic in the park compared to what he’s about to do. But a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do, so he crosses the remainder of the newsroom, takes a deep breath, and knocks on Erik’s door.

Just in case he was unsure of whether or not Erik was upset, the irritated “ _What_?” that answers his knock is confirmation enough. He winces, takes another deep breath just for good measure, and pushes the door open.

“Hi,” he says in what comes out as a dreadfully small voice, and he can’t quite shake the feeling of being a small child who’s been naughty and has come to apologize to his mum. “You…left early this morning,” he says for lack of a better icebreaker. Though, judging from the way Erik’s eyes are locked onto his computer screen, he’ll need a jackhammer to break through this ice. Statements of the obvious are not really going to cut it.

“An astute observation, Charles,” Erik says flatly, fingers pecking insistently at his keyboard (and no doubt writing highly irritated _did you actually talk to anyone or just get all your information off the website_ sorts of comments on Emma’s latest draft). “But as much as I’d love to sit around with you and discuss the current blueness of the sky, I’m a little busy right now.”

“I know. Look, I-” Charles breaks off, finding himself completely lost for words. _Say you’re sorry_ , his brain orders him, but a little stubborn bit at the back keeps snapping, _for what?_ And the fact is, he has no earthly idea of what he’s supposed to be apologizing for, still has no idea what’s ticked Erik off so badly that he’s now gripping his mouse hard enough to crack the plastic.

“I wanted to-” Charles tries again, but this time he’s interrupted by a slight commotion in the newsroom. Glancing over his shoulder, he catches sight of a sleek, dark head bobbing above the tops of the furthest cubicles and thinks, _shit_.

“Oh, god,” he murmurs, half to himself because what the hell, Erik isn’t even listening, who cares if he talks to himself? “Loki’s here.”

It turns out he’s wrong; Erik surprises him when he rumbles, “Well, I suppose you’d better go see him, then.”

“I, yeah,” Charles mumbles helplessly, doing his best to both edge out of Erik’s office and stay inside it. Shockingly, it doesn’t work out too well; he’s caught between the need to just _talk_ to Erik, to apologize, to try and work things through and make everything go back to normal again and the terror that if he doesn’t get to Loki soon, Logan will. Or maybe even Alex. Oh, dear god.

“I-I’ve got to go,” he says idiotically, still lingering halfway through the door. “But, um—look, uh, we’ll talk later, ok, because there are things that we need to—yeah, just, just—I’ll bring Loki in in a bit, okay, so just—behave, _please_.”

With that, he rushes out, not even daring to glance over his shoulder. Seeing Erik staring at his computer like he hadn’t even said a word would just be too much to bear.

Instead, he practically sprints out into the newsroom and screeches to a halt in front of Loki, who is, as usual, unbelievably dapper in another one of his perfectly-tailored black suits, this one with a narrow, jade green tie that, Charles can’t help but notice, exactly matches his eyes.

“Charles,” he says warmly, and some of the tension seeps out of Charles’ shoulders as Loki gives his hand a firm, warm shake. “How are you?”

“Oh, you know,” Charles says, a bit breathless, trying unobtrusively to straighten his sweater vest, “Busy. Always busy. But, ah, very, very glad you’re here.”

“As am I, my friend,” Loki smiles, sliding his hands into his pockets and looking around him appraisingly. “Your offices are quite lovely, though I daresay a bit cramped…”

“Yes, well, our staff has grown considerably in the past few years,” Charles says, praying that Loki hasn’t seen the state of the supply cabinets—“cramped” doesn’t even begin to describe the Vietnamese jungle of tangled rubber bands, broken pens, worn-down pencils, and scattered post-it notes (decorated with charming expletives, courtesy of the interns) that those innocent-looking metal cabinets contain.

“Well, then perhaps a new location is in order,” Loki says with a mischievous smile, and Charles nearly chokes because is he suggesting-?

“Oh, my goodness,” he says faintly, trying to wrap his head around the fact that Loki is actually considering spending money on a new office for them to trash. “That’s, erm, my gracious, that’s very, very generous of you—I mean, I don’t want to-”

“I should like to meet your editor in chief,” Loki says breezily, mercifully cutting off Charles’ incoherent stammering. “You made him sound like such a marvelous fellow.”

“D-did I,” Charles says weakly, his mind grabbing desperately for excuses because dear _god_ he can’t take Loki in to see Erik, not now—well, preferably not ever, but since that seems rather impractical he’s just going to put it off for as long as humanly possible. “I—I think he’s rather busy right now, I’m afraid. Would you—uh, maybe I should give you the tour first. He should be off the phone with the advertisers by then.”

This is, of course, a whopping great lie; they have very few advertisers (if you don’t count the classifieds, which Charles prefers not to because they kind of creep him out), and the ones they do have never call, and if they did, Erik wouldn’t talk to them. But it sounds quite businesslike and impressive, and fortunately Loki nods agreeably and follows Charles across the newsroom.

“This is the newsroom,” Charles says, rather unnecessarily. “All our reporters have their desks in here, as do our copy editor and our office manager. In there is the conference room where we have our daily planning meeting, and-”

He breaks off as, without warning, his worst nightmare appears over the top of the nearest cubicle: Alex Summers’ stupid, blond head. Even worse, it’s shouting—no, screaming, screaming at the top of its lungs in the general direction of the Copy Cave.

“What the _fuck_ , Scott!” he yells, and Charles has to resist the sudden urge to shove Loki into the conference room and slam the door shut so that he doesn’t have to hear whatever’s coming next. Because anything that starts with _what the fuck Scott_ generally involves profanity, screaming, more profanity, something disgusting, and both Summers brothers, which is decidedly _not_ what Charles wants Loki’s first impression of the paper to consist of (regardless of how unfortunately accurate it may be).

“ _What_ the actual _fuck_ ,” Alex shouts again, just for good measure, and Charles could swear that he can hear Scott’s poker face from across the room. “Why would you—why the _fuck_ did you send me that, you fucking—you’re disgusting, what the fuck, you, you—people should _not_ do that with horses and they most definitely should not take pictures and you _absolutely_ should not fucking send them to me!”

He pauses for breath, glances over his shoulder at Charles and Loki, and freezes.

“Uh,” he says very quietly, shoulders taut as a tightrope, “Uh, Charles, tell me that’s not our new publisher…”

“He’s not,” Charles says, and Alex visibly relaxes, collapsing down into his desk chair with a thud.

“Oh, thank _fuck_ ,” he says, folding his hands behind his head, “I thought I’d totally fucked-”

“ _Yet_ ,” Charles adds loudly, and Alex’s eyes go wider than quarters, his mouth dropping just the slightest bit open.

“I think,” Charles says _very_ calmly and evenly, “You’d better finish up your edits on that drug bust story.”

“That…that sounds like a good idea,” Alex says weakly, scooting himself over to his computer. That’s when Charles’ façade of calm breaks, and he grabs Loki’s arm and practically drags him across the newsroom and into the hall.

“I,” he begins frantically, “Am _so_ sorry about that, I didn’t—I mean, that sort of thing hardly ever happens around here-” another lie, but he can hardly explain the Summers brothers to Loki on his very first day, “-and, and they’re related, you know, a bit of sibling rivalry but they’re wonderful guys, really, really great reporters-”

“Relax, Charles,” Loki chuckles, putting a hand on Charles’ shoulder (and Charles feels himself melt into the contact like a pleased cat). “I work with truckers. Believe me, I’ve heard far worse than that.”

“I—good, okay,” Charles says, still a little shaken. But Loki’s still smiling and he seems sincere and not mortally offended by his reporters’ language and animal pornography-related pranks, so he lets himself calm down a little. “Good. Um, well, the photo lab is this way.”

He leads the way down the hall and Loki follows, his hand still resting comfortably on Charles’ shoulder. It stays there for the remainder of the tour, warm and reassuring, and Charles…well, Charles can’t exactly say that he minds.

-

He manages to drag the tour out for an entire half hour, showing Loki through the photo lab (he has to make ghastly faces at Azazel behind Loki’s back to get him to say a few polite words), the tech room (Sean, bless him, is as cheerful as ever and doesn’t make one single reference to horse porn), and the break room (which is mercifully unoccupied and miraculously severed body part-free).

They return to the newsroom and Charles, noticing Loki eyeing Erik’s door curiously, searches desperately for someplace else to show him. But to no avail; Loki heads determinedly for Erik’s office, leaving Charles to trail unhappily in his wake.

“Erm,” he says faintly, trying and failing not to jog to catch up with Loki’s long strides, “I—I take it you’re going to see Erik, then?” Somehow, he thinks, that all came out wrong; it was supposed to be a brilliant distraction that would _prevent_ Loki from walking into the office of death, not encourage him. Because, yes, okay, he likes Loki and would really prefer than he not get browbeaten or mauled or murdered by a wrathful Erik (though something tells Charles that Loki is not exactly the sort to allow himself be browbeaten and has probably mauled a good many people in his time).

Miraculously, though, Loki pauses and looks back over his shoulder, only to raise an eyebrow (perfect, jet black, arched gracefully like a dancer) and say, “Is there a problem?”

“Hm? Oh, no,” Charles says hastily, trying frantically to wipe the expression of abject horror off his face and force a smile that he’s afraid comes out worryingly grimace-like. “No, uh, let’s-” _get this over with_ , his brain supplies grimly, but he just repeats, “Let’s.”

The walk to Erik’s office takes altogether too little time, and before he’s quite prepared himself (though he’s not entirely sure that he could ever fully prepare himself for the complete cataclysm that this meeting is going to be) he’s starting to knock on the door. Just before his knuckles hit the wood, however, he thinks better of it. The last thing he needs to do is give Erik an opportunity to shout irritably at Loki before they’ve even seen each other.

So he heads off the inevitable grumpy _what_ by simply pushing the door open and barging in. Erik swings around in his chair, mouth already open and ready to deliver an undoubtedly charming greeting, and for a moment Charles thinks all his efforts have been in vain. But then, by some miracle, Erik closes his mouth, his face smoothing itself out into a bizarre, flat mask.

And then Charles realizes that Loki’s standing just behind him, hand resting gently on his shoulder, and Erik’s icy blue eyes have locked with those bright, mischievous green ones. For a few moments, it’s like Charles isn’t even in the room. It’s kind of horrible how relieving the feeling is.

But it’s not long before they snap out of their little staring contest, and Charles feels both pairs of eyes once again resting on him (and he can’t help but slump under the sudden weight of responsibility that’s returned to him like a cartoon anvil dropping onto his shoulders).

“Well, uh,” he says as cheerfully as he can manage, edging all the way into Erik’s office to let Loki come in and stand beside him (and that hand is still on his shoulder and he can see Erik’s eyes flicker towards it every other second and all of a sudden he’s wishing _desperately_ that Loki would take it away). “Erik, this is Loki Laufeyson. Loki, this is Erik Lehnsherr, editor in chief of the Amistad Avenger.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Loki says smoothly, and Charles feels his stomach drop because he expected Erik to be the hostile one but Loki’s smiling, smiling slow and wide and frosty and horribly, _horribly_ polite and this is going to go very, very badly very, very quickly.

“Likewise,” Erik says cautiously, but he’s smiling, close-mouthed and guarded, which could either be a really good sign or a very bad one. “I hope you’ve enjoyed your tour?”

“Oh, I certainly have.” Loki squeezes Charles’ shoulder gently and Charles prays that he doesn’t look as guilty as he feels and this is _ridiculous_ , everything Erik can make him feel in just a single glance is absolutely ridiculous but he’s known that for ages now anyway and now is really not the time to contemplate it further because Loki is leaning towards him slightly (sides nearly touching now, and Charles isn’t sure whether that sudden heat is coming from Loki’s body or his own face) and saying, “Charles here is just the most marvelous tour guide.”

“Undoubtedly,” Erik says, and if Charles weren’t listening for it he would have missed the edge that creeps into Erik’s voice, the gritted-teeth forced politeness that veils the contained rage behind those pale eyes.

“I really do admire the community you’ve got here,” Loki continues airily, and Charles dares to hope that maybe he can stop holding his breath because they’re going to start talking about things other than _him_ which would be really great and far less stressful thank you very much. “Everyone here seems to have a very… _close_ relationship.”

Again, if Charles weren’t watching he would have missed it: the tiny flicker, the sudden grimace that disappears just as quickly as it appears on Erik’s face. For his part, Charles nods and tries to look as cheerful and encouraging as possible, and after a moment Erik nods and says, “Yes. Yes, I suppose you could say that.”

“I’m, ah,” Loki begins delicately, eyes fixed intently on Erik like he’s watching for the same tiny flickers as Charles is, “I’m very interested in becoming a part of that relationship.”

“Well, you certainly seem to be working hard at it,” Erik says flatly, and his words could almost be innocent if it weren’t for his eyes, those piercing eyes narrowed and fixed, absolutely _fixed_ on Loki’s hand on Charles’ shoulder.

Loki doesn’t respond, and Charles feels all the warmth (and, knowing him, all the color) drain from his face as they begin staring one another down again, and Erik’s hunched over his desk like a defensive animal and Loki’s still wearing that cool, calculating smirk and Charles can just _see_ the gears turning inside that dark, feather-sleek head but he can’t tell what they’re doing, where they’re going, what conclusions are clicking neatly into place.

And then Erik’s gaze flickers to Charles, who widens his eyes and mouths _be nice_. Erik sighs, gives up his juvenile little staring contest with Loki, and shuffles some papers around on his desk, clearly mulling over the next thing to say—excluding, Charles hopes fervently, the obvious possibilities of _I hate you_ , _I think you are horrible and annoying and trying to take advantage of Charles_ , and _get out of my office this instant before I rip my keyboard out of my computer and bludgeon you to death with it_.

Fortunately, Erik does indeed circumvent all those choices in favor of clearing his throat and saying, “Well. Charles tells me that you’re in the shipping business, Mr. Laufeyson.”

“Indeed I am,” Loki nods, that sleek, icy smile still fixed on his face.

“I was wondering,” Erik says slowly, folding his hands on his desk and matching Loki’s smirk with a calculating half-smile of his own (and Charles definitely feels his breath catch in his throat because god _damn_ it Erik is dreadfully attractive even while potentially losing them a potential publisher), “What exactly it is that you…ship across the border.”

Charles has to restrain the urge to hide his face in his hands and let out a muffled scream; the air quotes around “ship” are practically visible, and he can’t help but wonder if Erik is deliberately trying to make Loki storm out and refuse to even consider publishing the paper. Because not-so-indirect implications of drug dealing aren’t exactly a spectacular strategy for attracting potential business partners.

Fortunately, Loki just smiles (close-lipped, eyes narrowed, cat-like) and says, “Oh, I assure you, Mr. Lehnsherr, my operations are perfectly legal. No need to worry about another fiasco like what happened with Tony—who was a rather dreadful choice for a publisher, if you don’t mind me saying.”

“He was publisher long before I became editor,” Erik says gruffly, and _wow,_ even the very mention of Tony is enough to get those invisible hackles of his standing on end.

Loki, unfortunately, appears totally oblivious; he just chuckles, shakes his head, and says, “It’s just a wonder that the whole thing didn’t fall apart sooner—and that it never occurred to anyone that a well-known arms dealer wasn’t exactly the best choice for a publisher.” He gives Erik another narrow-eyed glance, and Charles begins to get the dreadful feeling that he’s watching some sort of horrible, sick ping-pong match—a match that, if he’s not very careful, may end up being to the death.

Erik’s next move is to clear his throat loudly and say, in a frighteningly sweet tone, “I realize that you may not know much about the newspaper business, Mr. Laufeyson, but you must understand that an editor-in-chief often has far too much to do to worry about whether or not his publisher is ‘the best choice.’”

“Mm, you must be very busy indeed,” Loki nods, and that’s definitely an edge of sarcasm creeping into his voice and Charles just wants to sink into the floor and disappear forever because they need to _stop_ , why won’t they just stop?

“Too busy to write at all, I suppose. I never see your work in the paper,” Loki goes on, that polite smirk of his gaining a sharp, dangerous edge. “But I have followed Charles’ very closely. I think he is perhaps the most talented writer you have on staff.”

“Loki, please,” Charles murmurs, looking at his feet and trying desperately to will the red out of his face (but judging from the heat flooding his cheeks, it’s not working too well).

“It’s true,” Loki insists, and Erik is remaining worryingly silent but Charles won’t look at him, can’t force himself to look up and see the storm of rage breaking across his face. “He has the most wonderful voice,” Loki continues, and Charles can’t think of a thing but _shut up shut up shut up shut up please for the love of god shut up_.

“I mean, I almost felt I knew him before I even met him. And now that I _have_ met him…” -Loki’s grip on his shoulder tightens just the slightest bit and Charles has to resist the urge to flinch away- “…well, I’ve just gotten to know him _so_ well.”

There’s a pause, during which Charles finally manages to force his eyes up and onto Erik’s face, which is, once again, curiously flat and mask-like. Charles’ heart sinks still further—it’s probably somewhere in the vicinity of his ankles by now—as Erik avoids his gaze and says (voice cold, flat, fracturing around the edges with barely-stifled rage), “If you knew Charles as well as I do, Mr. Laufeyson, I think you’d find that there is a good deal more to him than you could possibly understand from a mere day’s acquaintance.”

“Well, then,” Loki says briskly, clasping his hands together (and finally, _finally_ letting go of Charles’ shoulder, which is far more of a relief than makes any sense whatsoever), “I suppose I shall have to get to know him better still, won’t I?”

Erik’s knuckles crack like gunshot in the tense silence, and when Charles shoots him a horrified glance he just smiles—grimaces, really, teeth bared and eyes narrowed and dark with fury—and cracks the other hand.

“Charles,” Loki says cheerfully, and _god,_ it’s like he’s not even aware that there’s an enraged maniac across the room who is not-so-subtly threatening to punch his lights out, “Where might I find the men’s room?”

“Oh, uh,” Charles says weakly, trying unsuccessfully to keep his eyes from darting nervously towards Erik’s fists, “D-down the hall towards the, erm, the photo lab. It’s the—the, sorry, the first door you’ll pass on your left.”

“Thank you,” Loki says graciously, wafting his way towards the door. “I’ll only be a moment.”

“Take your time,” Charles says faintly as Loki disappears out into the newsroom.

The second the door closes behind him, the dam bursts.

“What,” Erik begins, “The _fuck_ was that?”

“You know, Erik,” Charles replies, and yes, his voice is shaking but he can make up for that in volume, “That’s a _very_ good question. What on earth were you _thinking-_ ”

“What I was _thinking_ , Charles,” Erik cuts him off, and _god_ he’s being horribly loud and Loki is probably still within earshot but it looks like quietness is not really happening anytime soon, “Is that you chose a lying, sneaking, smooth-talking _asshole_ to be our publisher!”

“I—what?” Charles nearly shrieks, and it feels like every one of his sixty-seven inches is straining upwards in outrage. “What are you _talking_ about? He’s a perfectly lovely man, maybe if you hadn’t-”

“Perfectly _lovely_?” Erik snarls (and a very small part of Charles is sort of amazed because Erik just _doesn’t get it_ , he doesn’t see anything that Charles sees in Loki), “Perfectly—he was _all over you_ , Charles!”

“I don’t know _what_ you’re talking about,” Charles snaps (even though he kind of does, can still feel the imprint of Loki’s fingers on his skin). “He’s a perfect gentleman, you are just being unnecessarily belligerent-”

“Gentleman?” Erik repeats, and dear lord, there are _veins_ standing out in his forehead and some small, rodent-like portion of Charles’ brain is beginning to feel very, very afraid, “ _Gentleman_? Oh, yes, he was a _perfect_ gentleman, wasn’t he, telling me how _well_ he’s gotten to know you and what a _marvelous_ tour guide you are and practically groping you in front of the entire goddamn staff-”

“You are _not_ on about this again,” Charles says, like maybe if he gets astonished and angry enough and folds his arms violently enough and digs his nails into his palms hard enough it’ll come true. “I cannot _believe_ —this is absolutely—for the last time, I am _not_ sleeping with Loki! What is the _matter_ with you, I don’t understand! Just because I’m gay does not mean that I’m a, a bloody _sex fiend_ who’ll sleep with every attractive man who happens to come my way!”

It’s not until he catches sight of Erik’s face—eyes wide, mouth open like he’s not quite sure of what just happened—that Charles realizes what he’s said, and _shit_. He has just successfully shouted himself into silence because _shit_ , what does he say now, _shit_ , why is Erik being so quiet, why is Erik _staring_ at him like that, why won’t Erik _say_ anything?

The pause stretches into a horrible, unbearable silence, during which Erik stares at Charles and Charles stares at his shoes and wishes fervently that he didn’t exist. And then Erik takes a breath and opens his mouth, and that is right about when Charles decides that now would be a really great time to get the fuck out of here.

He’s half a step from the door by the time Erik emits a strangled noise that sounds vaguely like Charles’ name. And before he can stop himself, before he can remind himself that he’s _escaping_ , dammit, and freedom is just a door’s thickness away, he turns around.

“I’ll, uh, I’ll see you later, okay,” he says all in a rush, cutting off anything Erik could even think of saying. “I need to, uh, see to, you know, stuff, so if you could just, erm, pretend that this never happened, that would, you know, be really great, so I’ll just be off-”

He turns on his heel and actually manages to get a grip on the door handle (so close, so close to safety even though his hands might just be shaking) before Erik says his name again, muted and so piteous—piteous, Christ, _piteous_ like the man wasn’t screaming obscenities just moments ago—that Charles can’t help but stop.

“When Loki leaves,” he says to the door, not turning around, not looking over his shoulder, not even flinching at the faint intake of breath behind him that comes out more like a hiss—well, okay, maybe he does flinch a little, just a little, but not so as you’d notice—“I’d like you to come out and say goodbye to him in a-” the words on the tip of his tongue burn like vodka, angry and resentful, but he spits them out anyway, “- _polite_ and _civilized_ way, please. Can you—can you do that for me?”

When Erik doesn’t respond, Charles decides to make a break for it, and the newsroom outside is mercifully raucous after the tightrope-tense silence of Erik’s office. Unsurprisingly, Loki’s managed to charm the pants off the entire office while Erik and Charles have been shouting at each other; he’s got a veritable crowd surrounding him, and even Scott and Logan are leaning grudgingly out of their cubicles to hear whatever it is that’s making all the interns erupt in laughter. Still, somewhere beneath all the noise, Charles manages to hear the faint, defeated _yes_ that follows him out the door.

-

Loki leaves in a whirl of handshakes and gracious smiles, because dear _god_ Charles has no idea what he’s done to the interns but they’re practically hanging off him like attention-starved little monkeys (and Emma is glancing at Loki through her eyelashes, calculating, and it’s all Charles can do not to roll his eyes at her because _really_ ). Finally, finally, Charles manages to drag Loki out of the scrum and lead him over to the elevator.

“I say,” Loki chuckles, straightening his (still impeccable, still unwrinkled) sleeves. “They certainly are…enthusiastic.”

“Mm, yes, sorry about that.” Charles punches the call button and turns back to Loki, hands quickly stowed in his cardigan pockets to hide the nervous fists they’re constantly attempting to make. “They do work hard, though. Everyone does.”

“I can tell.” Loki’s smile is warm, intimate, and Charles feels some of the tension leak out of his shoulders. That is, until Loki glances over his shoulder and adds, casually, like it’s nothing of any particular importance, “Your editor-in-chief is an…interesting fellow.”

And then Charles looks back and his stomach does a back-flip straight into his mouth because there’s Erik leaning against his office door, and even from the other side of the newsroom his gaze is piercing. Charles flushes and looks away.

“Normally he’s much more…” Charles trails off, searching for the right word before settling on, “…gentlemanly. Today’s probably just a bad day. He’s a very busy man, has a lot on his mind.”

“Indeed.” Loki’s still looking, eyes narrowed, and Charles could swear that he sees a flash of _something_ cross that pale, fine-boned face, something that’s not quite anger or disgust but certainly isn’t pleasant. Charles shivers and prays that he never has to see that something ever again.

Mercifully, the elevator doors choose that moment to open with a shuddering clang, and Charles has to resist the urge to grab Loki by the arm and drag him inside. Instead, he steps in first and Loki follows him closely, the fine, black fabric of his suit slithering momentarily across Charles’ forearm.

They turn to face the doors, which decide to take their own sweet time to close, leaving Charles and Loki to stare uncomfortably out into the newsroom. Charles can’t help it; his gaze drifts to Erik, slouched against his door so nonchalantly, white shirt rolled up to his elbows (a fatal mistake, of course, because Charles can see the flexing tension in those disgustingly perfect forearms that belies his blasé posture). And dammit, his head maybe be screaming in anger, but his heart _still_ stretches and squeezes and aches, _aches_ for that jaw line and that wide, thin-lipped mouth that’s pressed so tight.

He can’t force himself to look away, not even when out of the corner of his eye he sees Loki lift one corner of his mouth in a mocking smile and touch two fingers to his forehead in a lazy sort of salute. He watches the minute narrowing of Erik’s eyes, the stretch of the closed lips that’s less of a smile and more of a challenge, the grudging nod that’s more of a _fuck off_ than a goodbye.

And then, mercifully, the elevator doors close.

“You two certainly seem to have an…unusual relationship,” Loki says smoothly, as if nothing’s happened. Charles swallows hard and can’t quite bring himself to meet Loki’s eyes.

“Yes, well.” He’s blustering, he can hear himself blustering but he can’t stop, can’t help but brush down the front of his cardigan like a discomfited old man. “It’s not usually quite so…fraught, shall we say. I’ve just—he’s—we’ve all been under a considerable amount of stress, you see, what with this whole publisher debacle.”

“I understand completely.” Loki’s voice is warm and close, and Charles looks up to find that, once again, the man is encroaching spectacularly upon his personal space. “I do hope that I can help to alleviate some of that stress.”

“I—yes,” Charles says faintly, half swallowing the words because Loki is _very_ close and he smells like something dark and heady that only blooms at night, all undercut with something sharp and unmistakably metallic that feels like a cold knife sliding across his tongue. He looks up and finds those eyes, those brilliant green eyes anchored by a widening circle of pure, bottomless black, fixed on him like they’re trying to devour him whole.

Charles takes a step back. Loki, naturally, follows, never breaking eye contact as his hand comes up to find Charles’ shoulder, his cardigan, his shirt collar. Charles takes another step back, and another, and another until he’s backed up against the chilly steel of the elevator wall with Loki towering over him and one cold, long-fingered hand fisted in his shirt.

And Charles doesn’t know what to do. Loki seems to be…waiting, watching Charles intently and waiting for him to do something, to make the decision that his brain is unwilling to even consider. He won’t deny that there’s a certain part of his brain that’s screaming at him to go for it, that’s envisioning those clever hands snaking their way underneath his shirt and that long, lithe body sprawled out on a bed and arching into his every touch.

And then there’s that _other_ bit, the bit that won’t stop pulling up images of Erik and the glorious sunbursts of lines that spread from the corners of his eyes when he smiles, the way he tips back his head and exposes the long, gorgeous line of his throat when he laughs, the way his square, steady hands feel on Charles on the rare occasions when they touch.

There’s also a rather stubborn bit of him that’s saying, _I thought you told Erik you weren’t sleeping with Loki? Do you really want to prove him right?_

A still more childish bit rejoins, _it would serve him right, bloody great prick. Go on, fuck Loki, just to show him. Why should Erik keep you from having a little fun?_

All mental activity shuts down, however, when he feels Loki’s fingers make the leap from his collar to his skin, dancing across his throat and drawing out all his breath in a wordless gasp. And there’s no denying that his body reacts; it’s almost sad how eagerly he feels himself arch into the touch, how pitifully desperate he is for contact like this. Loki can see it, too; those lips quirk into a darkly amused smile as he leans still closer until his breath is ghosting hot against Charles’ face.

“Loki,” he means to say, but it comes out less like a word and more like a sigh, which is apparently the cue for Loki’s other hand to slip underneath Charles’ cardigan and start tracing the gentlest of circles into his skin through his all-too-thin shirt.

“I—you-” Charles says faintly, finding himself increasingly short of breath (because, _Christ_ , those _fingers_ are meandering across his throat and sliding round to the back of his neck to tug gently at a stray lock of hair and this just isn’t _fair_ , how does Loki _know_ ) and even shorter of coherent words. Because, seriously, what is he supposed to say? Sorry, I’m in love with my boss? No can do, Erik thinks we’re having sex and I don’t want to prove him right? Unfortunately, I rather object to being felt up in elevators? Too bad, this is a really terrible idea and violates basically every rule of workplace ethics ever written?

That last, actually, is a pretty decent one, but somehow the words just won’t form, especially not with Loki’s hand roaming down the slope of his shoulder ( _inside_ his shirt, mind you, and Charles is shivering partially from the chill of his touch and partially from…well, his touch) to trace lazily across his collarbone. Then there’s Loki’s _other_ hand, which is making a bold venture up his chest and getting _dangerously_ close to his shirt buttons. Because, _really_ , a quick, harmless feel in an elevator is one thing, but getting undressed in here is _so_ not on.

It’s a mark of the considerable strain it’s under that Charles’ brain takes several seconds to realize what an utterly ridiculous statement that is. Because this is not, in fact, _harmless_. It is a _spectacularly_ bad idea, a gigantic mistake that could in no conceivable universe end well for anyone involved. It’s dishonest is what it is, because to be perfectly frank he’s not entirely sure what the motives are on either end of this whole thing but he sure as hell knows that _his_ aren’t perfectly innocent.

Because, sure, okay, he might not mind having Loki’s hands all over him, but anything beyond a quick fuck and run is just...not on, if he’s being honest with himself. Loki in his bed is one thing, but Loki in his apartment, in his kitchen, in his car, in his _life_ is unimaginable. Worse, it’s actually sort of horrifying, and Charles once made a promise to himself never to sleep with anyone who he couldn’t stand to see every morning. He gave up one night stands when he left New York—not entirely voluntarily, of course, because Amistad isn’t exactly Chelsea and no one here has shown any particular inclination to leap into his bed, but it’s not like he hasn’t felt like a better person for it. He never really _liked_ one night stands, never liked how dirty they made him feel. His friends mocked him mercilessly for it, but at heart he’s really a dreadful romantic.

Besides, he’s not entirely sure where this whole feeling-up thing fits into Loki publishing the Avenger. Is it an incentive? A _reward_? A sudden pang of repulsion shoots through him. Charles may be a lot of things, but he sure as hell won’t be anybody’s reward.

And then there’s that insistent thought, the tiny image of Erik’s disapproving eyes hovering just at the back of his mind that just won’t go. The thought of actually facing that gaze makes his stomach churn, and for _this_? He can’t lose Erik for _this_. As far as priorities go, Erik has pretty much always been at the top of Charles’ list.

Loki’s fingers are tracing Charles’ third button—slowly, thoughtfully, as if calculating its exact diameter and circumference and the ease with which it could be maneuvered out of its buttonhole—when Charles makes a break for it. As escapes go, it’s not particularly graceful; he wrenches himself out of Loki’s grip and sort of staggers sideways across the elevator towards the doors, which choose that exact moment to open with a blessedly jarring _ding_.

“Ah,” Loki says quietly, with a smirk that makes all the hairs on the back of Charles’ neck stand on end because this isn’t over yet, is it? Those green eyes follow him out into the parking lot, lock onto him like twin sights on a gun as Loki strides past him and throws a leg over his motorcycle.

“The teasing routine is cute, Charles,” he purrs, actually _purrs_ , leaning low over his handlebars as he turns his key in the ignition, “But I must say that I’m looking forward to the day when one of us gets tired of it.”

Charles just shivers despite the sweltering heat and has to force himself not to take a step back as Loki swings his bike round, gliding noiselessly closer to Charles.

“And stop playing silly games with the German, won’t you?” Loki smirks, jerking his head upwards at the dilapidated office building towering over them. “Unrequited love just isn’t a good look on you.” He slings his helmet on over his head, and despite the immediate relief of being shielded from those eyes, Charles can still feel them fixed on him behind that sleek, black façade.

“I’ll be in touch.” Even through the helmet, Loki’s voice makes Charles shiver. 


	9. Chapter 9

Loki kicks the bike into motion and speeds out of the parking lot and down the street, leaving Charles to shuffle hazily back towards the building and try his hardest not to have a spectacular panic attack right here in the parking lot.

Stepping back into the elevator, unsurprisingly, provokes a wave of guilt that sloshes back and forth inside him the whole ride back up to the office. He’s _betrayed_ everyone, betrayed their trust and their confidence that he’ll act like a reasonable adult instead of letting himself be touched inappropriately in the elevator by a potential publisher. If he were a good man, he thinks bitterly, straightening his collar with feverish precision, he would have pushed Loki away to a safe distance and informed him in no uncertain terms that their relationship was to be solely professional.

But there’s a small, weak piece of him that points out that rejecting Loki might have meant losing them a publisher, and that…well, it might not make him a good person, but he’s willing to sacrifice his pride, his honesty, his _everything_ for this damn paper.

With that thought hanging firm, resolute in the back of his mind, he smoothes down his hair, rolls up his sleeves, and prepares to face the office.

The elevator doors open onto a newsroom that is, surprisingly, quite calm, but every head turns his way the moment he steps into it. There’s an expectance in every eye, a hopeful smile half-blooming on every mouth—even Logan’s managing to look vaguely optimistic, and Charles isn’t quite sure whether to be gratified by that or just plain frightened.

He opts for clearing his throat and striding purposefully towards his office (at least, he hopes his stride says ‘purposeful’ and not ‘I’m walking as quickly as I can so I can hide before anyone starts asking me questions’). Unfortunately, the rapid walk doesn’t quite do the trick, and Moira coughs delicately and gives him an expectant look just as he reaches his door. And he really _can’t_ ignore Moira, poor, sweet Moira with her brown eyes widened curiously, so he sighs, turns round, and looks out into the newsroom with what he hopes is the bold face of command.

“Well, I think that went very well.” He clears his throat again, wishing he could also clear his mind of Loki’s fingers on his throat. “I want to—thank you all, thank you so much for all your hard work. I haven’t—that is, there’s no verdict just yet, but I expect we’ll be hearing from Mr. Laufeyson quite soon. You all impressed him very much, and-” He pauses because the last thing he wants to do is give them false hope, not when things are so uncertain. He takes a breath and says, “Thank you. Just…thank you all so very much. I can’t—words can’t express how brilliant you all are, and I just think that no matter what happens-” He pauses again, swallows, tries to ignore the sudden brightness edging into the corners of Moira’s eyes, “This is the best bloody paper in the United States, and we shouldn’t forget that. No one should forget that, because you are all _amazing_. Absolutely amazing.”

With that, he smiles (a little weak, a little shaky, but still very much real), gives everyone a quick nod, and turns to slip into his office. Before he can get his door closed behind him, he hears someone—maybe Alex, maybe Mando, maybe even Scott, Christ—call, “You’re the best, Xavier.” He’s not quite sure whether to smile or burst into tears. (In true Xavier form, he does neither.)

-

The rest of the day passes in a whirl of e-mails to respond to, stories to edit, and breaking news to cover (a meth lab explosion in the west end of town, an illegal immigrant safe house bust to the south, and some fire department press conference downtown about new hoses or some damn thing). Charles works like a madman, editing story after story, sending out reporter after reporter, keeping all the planes in the air like the perfectly trained little air traffic controller that he is. He doesn’t stop to eat, to drink tea, to even _breathe_ , because not working means thinking, and thinking means remembering that he’s still technically in a fight with Erik and that he technically got sexually harassed by their future publisher and that he technically lied to the entire staff and told them that everything was okay.

He manages to make it through most of the day, plowing through massive amounts of work and compartmentalizing like he’s never compartmentalized. His concentration only breaks once, late in the day, when someone knocks on his door.

His stomach flip-flops, caught halfway between _please don’t be Erik_ and _please, please be Erik_ , so it takes him a moment to collect himself and call, “Come in.”

He’s relieved (or, as the case may be, disappointed) to see Hank shuffle into his office, shoulders hunched and hands fidgeting nervously in front of his stomach.

“Ah, Hank.” Charles turns reluctantly away from his computer, folding his hands on his desk and trying not to twitch with pent-up energy. “What’s going on? How’s that cactus story coming along? Hear from the EPA people yet?”

“Still, uh, still waiting on that,” Hank says distractedly like he _hasn’t_ been harping constantly on this damn cactus thing for months on end. “That’s not…that’s not really what I wanted to talk to you about, though.”

“Oh?”

“I, um.” Hank swallows, and Charles feels a small piece of his heart drop into his stomach because oh _god_ , what now?

“I hope you don’t mind,” Hank soldiers bravely on in the face of what Charles fears is his increasingly perturbed expression, “But I, uh, took the liberty of searching the online court records for Mr. Laufeyson’s name.”

“Oh.” Charles blinks, not quite sure how exactly to respond to that one. But Hank is, after all, a rather delicate creature in need of constant encouragement, so he nods and says, “Perfectly alright, Hank. Glad you took the initiative. Did you, ah, turn up anything?”

“Um.” Hank’s fiddling with the hem of his shirt, and a few more chunks of Charles’ heart tumble southwards because the combination of Hank’s expression, Loki, and court records cannot mean _anything_ good. “They were all, um, sealed. But it, uh, it seemed like he’d been involved in some way in an _awful_ lot of cases, and most of them seemed to be, uh…” He squeezes his eyes shut, takes a deep breath, and says, in a small, meek sort of voice, “…drug-related.”

It takes Charles a very, very long time to process this. Process, in this case, is used rather lightly; the only sense his brain can make of this latest discovery goes something like _shit shit shit shit shit._

Fortunately, he manages to contain himself and say, in a voice that sounds nothing like his own, “Ah. Well, that’s very…very interesting, thank you, Hank.” He digs his nails into his palms and reminds himself that he needs to keep breathing, that he needs to keep blinking, that he cannot actually have a complete nervous breakdown in front of his city hall reporter.

“I fucked this up big time, didn’t I?” Hank says quietly, and Charles is jolted out of his horrified stupor by a sudden pang of guilt.

“No, Hank, no,” he says hastily, leaning over his desk earnestly. “Of course you didn’t. I’m very, very glad you told me this, understand? This is an important thing for me to know. Thank you.”

“I just lost us a publisher, didn’t I?” Hank says miserably, backing towards the door. “I just killed the paper.”

“Oh, you don’t know that.” Charles does his best to smile reassuringly as Hank fumbles the door open. “This might turn out to be nothing. You never know.”

“Yeah,” Hank says faintly, shuffling back out into the office. “Yeah, you never do.”

It’s only once the door closes that Charles allows himself to look as despondent as he feels. He sort of collapses, actually, folding down over himself and burying his face in his hands. It’s only after a few long minutes of sitting, breathing, and deliberately not thinking that he decides that he’s had enough of this. It’s time to go home.

-

The drive home is mercifully brief and traffic-free, albeit somewhat melancholy (there’s an Adele song on the radio, loud and piano-driven and terribly maudlin, but he can’t quite bring himself to change the station). The climb to his apartment, however, is another thing altogether; the steps tug at his feet like they’re coated with rubber cement, and it’s all that he can do to wrestle himself through the front door and down into his chair. His shoulder bag hits the floor with a thud, followed by the faint rustle of his cardigan as he shucks it off his shoulders and lets it drop.

Shuddering faintly, he remembers Loki’s fingers crawling their way underneath it, the way they tugged at it so thoughtfully like all they wanted to do was rip it off him and send the rest of his clothes after it. He worries his lower lip between his teeth and stares at the sweater, the brown fabric crumpled in an injured-looking heap around the legs of his chair. Whenever he stops paying attention, he feels the ghost of Loki’s breath against his face, and it makes him shiver more than ever. Removing the cardigan, he decides, is not enough; he needs a long, hot shower to scrub the dirty feeling from his skin.

-

The shower, surprisingly, helps. He steps out of it dripping wet, scrubbed raw, and feeling more human than he’s felt in days. Best of all, he feels _clean_ , decent, capable of dealing with things. Well, capable of surviving the night without having a panic attack, at least. Well, maybe just a few hours. But it’s a start.

He towels himself dry, slides into a fresh pair of jeans and a tee shirt, and settles down in front of the television. Because if a good, hot shower and a clean change of clothes can’t stave off a panic attack, a Law and Order marathon most certainly can.

-

What he doesn’t count on, however, is the fact that Erik is still his flat mate and has to come home sooner or later.

Charles has almost managed to forget everything, to slip into a barely-conscious sort of haze that only hours of mind-numbing television dramas can induce. And this is just how he likes it. No thoughts, no worries, no responsibilities; just bright, moving shapes on a screen and all sound reduced to a comforting sort of background murmur.

For a moment, he almost thinks the clunk of the lock is just part of the episode—that is, until he actually focuses on the screen and realizes that they are standing in the middle of a bloody _field_ and there are no locks to clunk or doors to creak or footsteps to click across the floor towards him, and—

“Erik,” he says, and the word comes out far too much like a gasp for his liking but there’s no taking it back now.

“Hi, Charles,” Erik says heavily, shutting the door behind him and setting his briefcase down on the kitchen counter. And Charles, Charles can’t help but twist around in his seat and watch him over the back of the couch because it feels like _forever_ since he’s last seen him and he always seems to forget how bloody _spectacular_ Erik is, how perfect his shoulders are as he stretches and rolls them, how graceful he is as he toes off his shoes and pads in his socked feet over to the fold-out, how unspeakably beautiful his hands are as he braces them against the back of Charles’ chair.

“Are you…okay?” Charles says quietly, not quite trusting his own voice because all of a sudden he’s been seized with the terrible desire to just drop everything, drop Loki and drop the paper and drop this stupid fucking argument and just _grab_ Erik, just wind his arms around his waist and bury his face in his chest and refuse to let go until they forgive each other. Instead, he settles for twisting nervously at the neatly-made sheets of the fold-out until he’s wrinkled them hopelessly.

“Not…not particularly.” Erik frowns, hunches his shoulders, inspects his own knuckles. “I mean, Jesus, I-” He breaks off, shakes his head like he’s trying to clear water from his ears, and starts again.

“Never mind. I…look, Charles, I wanted to apologize.”

Charles just blinks at him, because of all the things he expected to hear from Erik at the moment, an apology sure as shit was not one. He doesn’t think he’s _ever_ heard a proper apology from Erik; nothing, anyway, that goes beyond a muttered _sorry_ after bumping into him or jostling his teacup. Certainly nothing like this strangely muted, restrained Erik, eyes downcast and every word crawling out of his mouth like it’s taking a couple teeth with it on its way out.

“I’m…sorry,” he says finally (and Charles can’t help but fear for his chair because at the rate Erik’s going, the grip he’s got on it will reduce it to splinters in no time). “I have—I shouldn’t have spoken that way to you, to—to Loki.”

“Oh,” Charles says faintly, and some distant bit of him is hoping fervently that his jaw hasn’t actually landed in his lap. “Um, thank you, that’s, that’s really very kind of you-”

“I shouldn’t have-” Erik says abruptly, and Charles lapses into silence because Erik’s clearly got more to say and the last thing Charles wants to do is interrupt him when he’s on a roll like this. Faintly, he thinks he should be gloating or something, but this is honestly too pitiful for him to even _think_ of being triumphant.

“I put the entire paper in jeopardy,” Erik continues stiffly, “Over something—something that was not any of my business. I realize now that-” He pauses searchingly, and it occurs to Charles that he must have _rehearsed_ this, must have run through it so many times in his head that it’s a script, and that’s kind of adorable and kind of horrifically heartbreaking at the same time.

“I—I realize that it is…entirely inappropriate for me to be involved in this, and it is absolutely none of my business, and I’ve been meddling where I’m not wanted, and…and I’m sorry. I’m very sorry.”

Charles frowns; none of his business? “Of course it’s your business, Erik,” he says slowly, unable to quite shake the feeling of jogging to catch up with this conversation. “It’s your newspaper, it’s yours far more than it’s mine. It’s completely your business who our publisher is.”

“That’s not-” Erik breaks off, and dear god, is he _flushing_? Charles feels himself begin to squirm; this is second-hand embarrassment of the worst kind, and he _still_ can’t understand what the hell Erik’s getting at.

“I meant,” Erik tries again, not meeting Charles’ eyes, “That it’s none of my business if…if you want to, to be with Loki. In a, um, romantic way. Completely not my business, completely inappropriate for me to interfere, completely idiotic of me to risk the future of the paper—Christ, completely insane of me to be having this conversation, what the fuck am I doing, I should just-”

He starts to turn around, but before he even makes it ninety degrees Charles blurts out, “I don’t want to be with Loki.”

And then, miracle of miracles, Erik turns back, and the words _I want to be with you_ die on Charles’ tongue in the face of Erik’s perplexed stare.

Instead, he says, “That’s completely—look, I never _wanted_ to be with him, I’d never—is that what all this has been about?”

“No. Er—yes. Kind of. Maybe?” Erik frowns sheepishly (dear lord, first an apology and now this; the apocalypse must be on its way) and scratches uncomfortably at the back of his neck. “But you never…?”

“Of course not.” Charles could laugh with relief if he weren’t so damn confused. “Good lord, no. I mean, Christ, Loki’s certainly, ehem, well-constructed, but the man’s an absolute cad. He tried to cop a feel in the elevator today, I mean, _really_.”

It’s only after Erik’s grip on his chair makes the wood creak in protest that Charles realizes that he actually said that, and relief is really no excuse to let his mouth run like that because Erik’s eyes have gone all narrowed and dangerous and Charles isn’t sure whether to fear for his own life or Loki’s.

“Don’t,” he says quickly, raising his hands defensively. “It was nothing, really. I got away pretty quickly, it didn’t-” He swallows hard and decides that if there’s any time for honesty, it’s now. “I mean, yes, it didn’t feel half bad, but, you know, I sort of object to being felt up in elevators—rather déclassé, don’t you know, and I’d really rather that my relationship with him remain strictly professional and oh god, please, _please_ don’t kill him, Erik, he didn’t do any harm, nothing came of it, nothing _will_ come of it-”

“You’d better keep him away from me,” Erik says softly. “Because I swear to god, the next time I see his stupid smug face those goddamn cheekbones are going to get turned into blood pudding, I fucking swear-”

“Erik,” Charles cuts him off, intending to console, to calm, to placate. Instead, a thought occurs to him, and he frowns and asks, “Why do you care?”

“Why do I—Jesus Christ, Charles, are you fucking _insane_ , you practically got _raped_ -”

“Not that—and it wasn’t _rape_ , Erik, okay, he just tried to become…intimately acquainted with my person and I wasn’t really having it, okay, so you really need to calm down.” Charles takes a breath, tries his hardest to pin Erik to the spot with his eyes, and says, “I meant about me being with Loki. Why do you care?”

Erik’s response is rather a long time in coming; he just stares at Charles for a few moments, head cocked to one side, a look on his face that’s somewhere between amusement and disbelief. And then, of all things, he laughs, actually _laughs_ , shaking his head and leaving Charles wishing desperately that he knew what the fuck was going on here.

“My god, Charles,” Erik says finally, still chuckling in an odd, almost sad sort of way. “You really are very dense, aren’t you?”

And, okay, Charles can’t help but bristle a little at that, because, oh, it’s just not _fair_. He’s really quite perceptive, thank you very much; his ability to read other people’s emotions is what made him such a good reporter, what continues to make him a good manager. He is _not_ dense, he’s just extremely tired and extremely confused and more than a little hurt.

“Oh, I like _that_ ,” he huffs (he can’t help it; the more offended he gets, the more British he becomes—it’s a sort of defense mechanism). “That’s quite rich, that is. I’m dense? _I’m_ dense? Excuse me, but I’m not the one who’s known me for over two years and never even noticed-”

He breaks off suddenly because shit, shit, oh god, he very nearly just said it, didn’t he? He was this close to just blurting it out like a complete idiot and oh lord exhaustion and indignation are _so_ not a good mix and now Erik’s staring at him and why does he even open his mouth ever, he should just never be allowed to speak again, he should take a vow of silence and shave his head and foreswear the company of dreadfully attractive men who make him say horribly, horribly stupid things without meaning to-

“Noticed what?” Erik asks softly, and Charles can’t even _look_ at him because if he looks at him he’ll try and say it all over again and then the world will most likely tip off its axis and go plummeting towards the sun and that doesn’t even make sense but he just stares at his knees and shakes his head wordlessly anyway.

“Noticed _what_ , Charles?” Erik repeats, voice going still softer and _dangerous_ somehow, but Charles just shakes his head again.

“Nothing,” he tells his knees. “It was—it’s nothing important, forgive me, I got upset, I shouldn’t have—it’s really nothing, not of any importance in the least-”

“Tell me, Charles.” Even more dangerous than Erik’s voice are his footsteps, which whisper around the chair and across the room to Charles until he’s staring at Erik’s khaki-clad knees as well as his own. “What didn’t I notice?”

Charles gulps audibly, fists the fold-out sheets in his hands, and makes a last attempt at keeping this conversation from spiraling completely out of control: “I—I don’t know, Erik, I really didn’t have anything in, in mind, I just, I just wanted to be rude, you know, pull out some big surprise that would make you feel really terrible for being so unobservant, but, oh, wouldn’t you know it, I can’t actually think of anything, guess I am pretty dense, whoops-” He tries to laugh, but it comes out more like a hysterical sort of titter that stops abruptly when Erik’s hands land on his shoulders and haul him to his feet by the collar of his tee shirt.

“I—I say, Erik,” he says weakly, struggling against the iron grip that’s practically lifting him off the bloody floor (bare feet scrabbling desperately for purchase on the sleek wood that’s just out of their reach) and forcing him to look straight into Erik’s eyes. “Is—is this _really_ necessary, I d-don’t-”

“ _Tell me_ , Charles,” Erik says, so softly that the words are little more than a vibration passing from his chest to Charles’ because—because, shit, they are _so_ close, they are in fact pressed up against each other and Charles isn’t swooning, he _definitely_ isn’t swooning because that would be extremely unmanly and unbecoming and he is no wilting maiden, god damn it, but it’s really kind of hard _not_ to swoon with Erik’s hands fisted in his shirt and pulling him up, up onto his tiptoes and so, so close to that perfectly-stubbled face—so close that he can _see_ the stubble, could draw a fucking _diagram_ of it if he was so inclined.

And his chest is heaving against Erik’s, his hands are scrabbling helplessly over Erik’s, his eyes are hopelessly locked with Erik’s and shit, he’s always had this, this _thing_ about being grabbed and dragged about and generally manhandled. That _thing_ sits in his vast collection of things, right alongside his thing for men on motorcycles and men in leather jackets and men who speak foreign languages and—okay, alright, it’s basically just another part of his giant, raging thing for Erik, but the point is that this is altogether too hot to be happening right now, especially while he’s quite so close to Erik. Especially while he’s clinging to a desperate, last-ditch attempt to salvage his dignity and their friendship.

“Tell me,” Erik whispers—and, okay, fuck it, Charles basically does swoon then, because that whisper _does_ things to him and seriously Erik should be a CIA interrogator because Charles doesn’t even mean to speak until the words are halfway out of his mouth.

“I’m in love with you.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cliffhanger, sorryyyy! (The next chapter should be worth it, though. I think.)


	10. Chapter 10

“I’m in love with you.” It’s less of a declarative statement and more like a whimper, wrenched out of his mouth like a tooth being pulled. He can feel the empty space it leaves inside him, gropes for it like a tongue probes the raw place where a molar or canine once was. All that protective tissue that cradled the secret for so long is useless now, torn bloody and ragged by the sudden wrench of revelation, and all he feels is…strange. Light. Empty.

And then Erik lets go of him. His feet hit the floor with an ungainly thud and he’s very much heavy again, weighed down with the sudden terror pooling in his stomach because _shit_ , Erik’s mouth has twisted into a strange, ugly line and Charles wasn’t expecting—well, he wasn’t expecting anything, to be honest, he didn’t exactly think this one through—but he certainly wasn’t expecting this, because when he gets a good look at Erik’s eyes he sees something there that could almost be hurt and what the hell, this doesn’t make _any_ sense.

As if to compound the nonsensicalness of this whole damn thing, Erik opens his mouth and snaps, “Don’t mock me, Charles.”

“M-mock—mock you?” Charles is staring at him, stupid, astonished, uncomprehending. “I’m not—Christ, I’m not _mocking_ you, I would never—when have I ever mocked you?”

“You do nothing but.” Erik spits the words like fire, and Charles isn’t sure whether to flee or drop to his knees and beg forgiveness for whatever it is he’s done. In the end, he just stays rooted to the spot, mouth hanging open, as Erik plunges on: “You mock me _every day_ , Charles. You let me live in your house and then you go drinking with Loki, you make me dinner and—and then you sleep on the couch, you, you go dashing off after drug-maddened meth cookers and let Loki touch you like your body’s nothing, like it doesn’t fucking _matter_ , Christ, you—you fall asleep with your head on my shoulder and then you go and flirt with Moira, with Emma, with fucking _grocery clerks_ , for fuck’s sake, what am I—what am I supposed to do?”

He runs his hands through his hair distractedly, takes an uncertain half-step away from Charles like he doesn’t know what to do, where to go, how to deal with _anything_ and it’s so piteous that Charles can feel his heart scrunching itself up into a tiny, whimpering ball somewhere inside his chest cavity.

“Everything you do.” Erik’s hands fall to his sides helplessly, and he slumps like a defeated man. “Every damn thing—every word you say to me, to Loki, to a woman, to _anyone_ , it just—every time you smile at me, every cheerful email, every casual touch. Every goddamn cardigan and sweater vest that you wear, every cup of tea that you drink, every bad television program you become obsessed with, every time I think I can hear you _breathe_ in the next room-” He scrubs his hands over his face, cracks his knuckles restlessly as he stands stock-still and talks down to his own feet.

“I just—everything about you, Charles, everything you do or say _mocks_ me, because—because it’s there, it’s right there in front of me and I can never have it.”

There’s a pause, punctuated only by the harsh sounds of Erik’s breathing and the faint noises of the television that Charles completely forgot was still on.

“Good lord,” Charles says at last, very, very quietly, and Erik makes a small, pained noise and covers his face with his hands.

“See, that’s—that’s exactly what I mean,” he says through his fingers, and Charles can’t help but take a step towards him because this Erik is so _fascinating_ that he might just have to touch him to make sure he’s real. “That’s exactly—you see, you just _say_ things, ordinary things like that, and it just makes me—it makes me want to _die_ , is what it does, and I just—what’re you doing?”

Charles’ response is to take another step towards him, and then another, and Erik’s eyes go all narrow between his fingers and his voice goes all panicky as he says, “Charles, what—what’re you—what are you doing, Jesus, where are you-”

“Erik,” Charles says gently, bracing his hands carefully on Erik’s upper arms and trying to ignore the way he starts like a frightened horse at his touch, “I think—I think you and I must be the two stupidest people on this earth.”

“I—what?” Erik lets his hands drop from his face so he can frown perplexedly down at Charles. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

And, okay, it’s not exactly the most romantic of statements, but Charles will take what he can get: he leans up and kisses him.

It’s…well, it’s really very surprising, is what it is. Erik, at least, certainly seems surprised; he rears back in shock—the way, Charles supposes, one would if confronted with a kamikaze lip-lock prefaced by absolutely nothing but an entirely cryptic statement. Still, he can’t help but feel the bottom of his stomach sink a few inches because that _was_ a declaration of love, wasn’t it? He’d thought—well, he’d assumed, really, but the way Erik’s words made his insides feel all runny and tight and fuzzy all at once seemed to be a pretty good indication, but now…well, now he’s not so sure.

His doubts, however, are quickly pushed to the further corner of his mind when Erik grabs him—one hand on the small of his back, pulling him close, and the other on his jaw, tilting his face up to meet Erik’s—and kisses him back. And it’s…it’s surprisingly tender, actually, because to be honest Charles was sort of expecting mad, pent-up passion and bruising force. But this is better, really, this slow, searching kiss like Erik’s trying to memorize every crease and corner of his mouth.

Tongues quickly enter into the investigation, and Charles can’t help but gasp quietly as Erik’s makes a slow, lazy sweep across his lower lip and into his mouth, across the edges of his teeth and up along the roof of his mouth. And then there are teeth tugging at his lower lip, worrying at it with the utmost care, and, really, the ensuing moan is _entirely_ unavoidable.

As they pull back to gasp for air, Charles’ hands find Erik’s waist, his jacket, oh Christ, his _leather_ jacket that has the perfect lapels for Charles to grab and yank on to bring Erik’s mouth back down to meet his in a motion that he has thought about _far_ too many times in the privacy of his own bedroom.

“Christ, Charles,” Erik groans, and the thrill that shoots through him at the sound of his own name being pressed back against his own lips is almost too much to bear. And, oh, that’s Charles’ hand sliding up Erik’s back between jacket and shirt, and there’s Erik’s hand fisting in the hem of Charles’ tee shirt, and those are Erik’s legs backing him up, up, up until the backs of his calves are brushing against the mattress of the fold-out.

“Oh, my,” Charles manages to gasp into Erik’s mouth as he tumbles backwards onto the fold-out, followed swiftly by the press of Erik’s body and Erik’s hands and the sudden bark of Erik’s laughter.

“Jesus, Charles,” he says wonderingly, on his hands and knees above Charles’ spread-eagled body, “That’s what you—at a time like this, you’re still—you’re saying ‘oh, my’?”

Before Charles can respond, Erik’s kissing him, kissing him hard and furious and leaving him gasping for breath. There are _teeth_ in this kiss, teeth sinking into his lower lip and clacking against his own and bruising his mouth into what he’s sure will be a perfectly violent red by the morning.

“Fucking Christ, Charles,” Erik says around another kiss, tongue dipping hungrily into his mouth, “I’m going to—I’m going to fuck every one of those proper little British mannerisms of yours right out of your mouth, you understand? I’m going to unravel you, I’m going to—I’m going to pull you to _pieces_ , and I’m going to make you enjoy every second of it-”

“God, Erik,” Charles manages weakly, fingers tugging desperately at that slicked-back hair that’s not looking quite so neat anymore, “Erik, you—you mustn’t, you mustn’t say things like—oh, god-”

His head drops back as that mouth, that mouth that’s burning hot enough to leave scorch marks all over Charles’ skin drops down to plant a string of kisses along his jaw, his throat, his arching neck.

“How long?” Erik whispers into his skin, and Charles shudders and moans as scalding breath sears across his throat. “How long have you wanted-”

“Months,” Charles gasps, his whole body arching into the kisses Erik is planting haphazardly up and down his neck. “Years, decades, forever, I don’t—” His words taper off into a whine as Erik sinks his teeth into the sensitive skin at the base of his neck, just above his collarbone.

“I remember that first midnight call,” Erik murmurs, his tongue tracing the dip between Charles’ clavicles. “You answered the door in a tee shirt and boxers, with your hair sticking out in twenty directions-”

“I remember,” Charles tells the ceiling breathlessly, hands sliding down the sides of Erik’s neck to settle just inside his shirt collar, thumbs rubbing slow circles into the scorching hot skin. “God, that was the most embarrassing-”

“And that was when it started,” Erik says softly, lifting his head to look steadily at Charles (eyes wide, pupils blown). “Me wanting you. It’s—I’ve never stopped, not even when I wanted to. Never.”

Charles takes a moment to contemplate him: mouth reddened and wet, jacket hanging off one shoulder, hair mussed irreparably out of its sleek part, a strand or two hanging down into his face. Charles can’t help it; he reaches out and pushes them back, smoothing the stray hairs down behind Erik’s ear in a gesture that suddenly feels gut-wrenchingly tender.

“You know,” he says thoughtfully, “I think I hate you.”

One corner of Erik’s mouth quirks up as he says, “Not as much as I hate you.”

The kiss that lands on Charles’ mouth is deep and slow, tongues sliding over lips, teeth, and tongues until Charles has to pull back to breathe.

“No,” he pants, flopping back against the mattress, “I really think I hate—I mean, Jesus, you wanted what I wanted for all this time and you never-”

“True,” Erik smirks, leaning down until his lips are just shy of brushing Charles’ as he speaks, “But, to be fair, neither did you.”

“And to think that we could have been doing this all along,” Charles says wonderingly, eyes wandering southward because Erik’s mouth is really _very_ distracting when it’s hovering above his like that. “If we had only stopped being so bloody—oh, my _god_.” The last words come out more like a growl, and Erik makes a faint, surprised noise as Charles grabs him by the hair and presses his mouth down onto his.

“Hate. You,” Charles hisses into his mouth, and Erik just chuckles.

“Oh, we’ll see about that.”

He punctuates the words with a nip to Charles’ collarbone that elicits a ragged, bitten-off breath followed by a whine as Erik sucks on the spot, tongue sliding studiously over the tender skin. And then Erik’s hands are sliding up the front of Charles’ shirt, tugging the hem up inch by inch as they go, and Charles lifts his arms and lets Erik drag the whole bloody thing off over his head and toss it to the floor. Erik sits back on his haunches for a moment to admire his handiwork, and Charles feels himself start to blush and squirm under that intense, incredibly approving gaze.

“Well, are you going to just sit there all night, or are you going to do something about it?” he demands finally, folding his arms across his bare chest.

“Bossy, bossy,” Erik chuckles, leaning forward and unfolding Charles’ arms with the utmost care. “Though,” he adds in a murmur that goes directly to Charles’ crotch, and oh—oh, goodness, now Erik’s got both his wrists in one hand and he’s pinning them above his head and leaning down to slide his teeth along the edge of Charles’ ear and whisper, “Somehow, I’m not surprised.”

Charles’ response is less than eloquent; he moans high in the back of his throat as Erik’s teeth sink into his earlobe, and his hips snap up against Erik’s with a force that leaves both of them gasping.

“Jacket,” Charles manages, tongue darting out to moisten his lower lip (in a motion that, he can’t help but notice, has Erik’s undivided attention). “Off—I want it off.”

“Brat,” Erik snorts, biting and sucking at a tender spot just under the corner of Charles’ jaw. “I think you forget that I’m the one who’s got you pinned to the mattress.” And that—well, that is just plain ridiculous because how could Charles ever forget _that_? But just in case he’s managed it somehow, Erik presses down just a little harder on his wrists, sinking them deep into the mattress and making him whine and wriggle with pleasure all at once.

“J-jacket,” he insists, breathless, as Erik’s mouth makes its methodical way across his now-bare collarbone. “P-please, Erik, just—god, fuck, please, please take it off-”

“Well, now,” Erik says, low and amused, into the heaving skin stretched across his sternum, “When you put it like that, how can I say no?”

The pressure on his wrists vanishes, and Charles—well, it’s embarrassing, but Charles actually leans his head up to watch the jacket come off, to watch Erik’s shirt stretch tight across his chest as his shoulders roll backwards and shrug the brown leather to the floor.

“Better?” Erik says with a smirk, and before Charles can tell him that he is entirely too self-satisfied, it’s not like he can take any credit for making himself the sexiest being in all creation, Erik leans back down and presses a short trail of kisses across Charles’ chest that skirts a sensitive spot closely enough to make Charles forget all his dignity and whine shamelessly.

“Guess so,” Erik chuckles into his skin, dragging his tongue in a slow circle that just misses—

“For fuck’s sake,” Charles grits through his teeth, arching helplessly into Erik’s mouth, “You goddamn—you bloody fucking tease, would you please just-”

“My god, Charles,” Erik whispers, his voice gone unexpectedly ragged, “You have _no_ idea what it does to me to hear you swear-”

“Fucking— _please_ , Erik,” Charles groans, and, okay, maybe he’s milking it just a little, but his usual self-restraint with regard to language really does tend to vanish in the bedroom. “Please just—just fucking-”

“Begging, too,” Erik says faintly, “Begging is—how the fuck did you _know_ , Charles, it’s not even natural, are you some kind of, of mind reader—oh, fuck-” He breaks off when Charles’ hips buck up insistently against his because _really_ , now is not the time for talking, and fortunately it’s only half a second later that he finally, _finally_ seals his mouth over Charles’ nipple and laves his tongue over it again and again until Charles is reduced to little more than a quivering, moaning sort of jelly beneath him.

“Erik,” Charles says breathlessly (and some distant part of him is surprised that he can still form coherent words at this point). “Erik, Erik-” By some miracle of self-control, he forces his fingers to sink into Erik’s hair and pull him away from the frankly remarkable attentions he is lavishing on Charles’ chest.

“Not that the fold-out isn’t…incredibly romantic,” Charles continues, trying and failing not to notice the way Erik is licking his lips, those wet, reddened lips that were just, oh _Christ_ it’ll be a miracle if he ever finishes his sentence at this rate- “But perhaps this would be best continued in my bed?”

“Gnh,” Erik says through clenched teeth, and Charles smiles as he feels the pressure of Erik’s hips against his thigh.

“My, my,” Charles chuckles, running an affectionate thumb along Erik’s jaw. “We _do_ like that idea, don’t we? The idea of fucking me in my bed really gets you off, doesn’t it, you dirty thing?”

“You have no idea,” Erik mutters, pushing himself abruptly to his feet, “How many nights I’ve spent lying out here thinking about doing just that.” Charles can’t stifle a gasp as Erik hauls him upright by his belt loops, locking their hips neatly together as Erik swoops in for a bruising kiss.

“That first morning,” Erik says against Charles’ lips, his hands hot against Charles’ waist as he walks him backwards across the living room, “When I walked out here and found you asleep on the couch without a blanket, without any fucking _clothes_ on except for your boxers, I swear to god I nearly-”

Charles cuts him off with another kiss, tongue swiping viciously into his mouth before he pulls back to retort, “And what do you think it was like for me? Coming out here every bloody morning to find you stretched out on the fold-out, having to just walk past you like I wanted to do _anything_ other than jump on you and fuck you senseless…” He undoes the first button on Erik’s shirt, then the second, then the third, hardly pausing when Erik pulls him still closer and kisses him ferociously, kisses him all the way across the living room and barely stops to breathe.

Somewhere along the way Charles manages to undo the final button and tug the shirt off onto the floor, so that there’s a delicious crash of skin on skin when Erik slams him into the wall beside his bedroom door.

“Oh, _lord_ ,” Charles gasps, because, yes, he was certainly hard before, but now he’s _unbelievably_ hard because Erik’s pressing him mercilessly up against the wall and of his long list of turn-ons, getting slammed against walls may actually take the cake.

“Oops,” Erik rumbles into Charles’ ear, not sounding sorry in the least. “Think I missed.”

“P-perfectly alright,” Charles stammers, head knocking back against the drywall as Erik stoops to scrape his teeth along Charles’ collarbone.

“Oh, I think it’s more than alright,” Erik chuckles, and Charles can practically _hear_ him smirking but he can’t quite bring himself to care because oh, oh god, that’s Erik’s hand reaching down to palm insistently at his increasingly strained jeans and he doesn’t even _think_ of trying to stifle his moans.

“This turns you on, doesn’t it?” Erik says roughly as Charles groans and presses desperately into his hand. “Forget the bed; you’d much rather get fucked against the wall, wouldn’t you? You kinky bastard.”

“Don’t—don’t pretend that you don’t like it, too,” Charles manages, taking Erik’s jaw in both hands and drawing him back up for another kiss. Erik’s hands, meanwhile, occupy themselves with undoing Charles’ button and fly, and Charles emits a faint noise as he feels his jeans whisper their way down his legs.

“This is what I thought about,” Erik murmurs, and Charles groans because dear _lord_ , is everything Erik says just calculated to turn him on more? “That first night when the fold-out broke and you came out here just like this, and all I wanted to do was…”

He doesn’t have to explain further; instead, he just sinks to his knees, and Charles has to bite his lip bloody to stifle the _oh god please just fuck me Erik please for the love of god_ that surges onto his tongue. As it is, he can’t quite muffle the whimper that escapes him when Erik slides his boxers off his hips and down to the ground. And then—well, it’s all just gone after that point, _he’s_ just gone, because Erik fixes his eyes intently on Charles’ face as he wraps his hand around him and draws him entirely into his mouth and Charles is briefly convinced that he is going to _die_ because this feels so bloody good.

It’s not long before he’s not even aware of _what_ noises are coming out of his mouth because Christ, Erik—Erik’s tongue, Erik’s tongue is gliding along the underside of his shaft and neighbors be damned, there is no way he is keeping quiet for this. He feels more than hears Erik’s moan, and when he looks down, through the haze, he sees that Erik’s undone his own fly and is scrabbling desperately to get himself off even as Charles sinks deeper and deeper into his mouth.

And, lord, it’s so fucking beautiful that it hurts Charles, it really does hurt, to reach down with one hand and tug at Erik’s hair, tug _hard_ until he looks up with confusion in his eyes.

“No,” is all that Charles can really manage at present, but more eloquent than his mouth is his free hand, which reaches down and swats at Erik’s arm. “You are not-” He pauses to take a breath, to steel himself because bloody _hell_ this is difficult, but it’s got to be done.

“You are not allowed to get yourself off,” he finally grits out, “Before I’ve gotten a chance to even touch you.”

Erik’s eyes narrow, and he slides his mouth off of Charles (whose knees practically buckle at the slick _pop_ Erik’s lips make) and—by some miracle—drags his hand out of his pants.

“You,” Erik says, voice hoarse, “Are evil. You are a goddamn seraphim is what you are, a, a succubus, you are a _torturer-_ ”

“No touching,” Charles says stubbornly, giving Erik’s hair another sharp tug for good measure. Erik’s eyes flutter shut—another fascinating discovery that Charles’ brain notes and tucks away for later use—and he braces both hands against Charles’ hipbones before, without warning, he pulls Charles’ entire length into his mouth and hollows his cheeks.

“Holy fucking-” Charles splutters, head crashing back against the wall so hard that he sees stars—or, okay, maybe those stars are swimming across his vision because he’s _so_ close, he’s so fucking close to coming harder than he’s ever come in his life, and all it will take is one more—

Erik sucks again, harder this time, and Charles makes a surprisingly faint noise as the heat that’s been building steadily in his belly bursts into sparks that shoot through his pelvis and out into his entire body, from his fingertips to his toes. When, a couple thousand years later, the white clears from his vision, he lets out a shuddering moan and slides slowly down the wall until he’s eye-to-eye with Erik, who wipes his mouth with the back of his wrist and reaches out to let Charles collapse into his warm, waiting arms.

“Sweet Jesus,” Charles rasps, burying his face in the convenient corner where Erik’s neck meets his shoulder. “Holy fucking fuck.”

“Indeed,” Erik says, and Charles hears a smile in his voice but also a slight strain, and it’s only then that he remembers that Erik is still very much hard and taking faint, choked breaths every time Charles shifts unconsciously against him.

“Ah, yes,” Charles says quietly, one hand sliding into Erik’s pants—conveniently already open for him, what a surprise—and tracing feather-light touches into his underwear. “I’d forgotten.”

“N-no, Charles, you should-” Erik’s remarkably altruistic words dwindle into a moan as Charles’ fingers find the damp spot in his briefs.

“Afterglow can wait,” Charles murmurs, getting to his feet and taking Erik with him. “At the moment there are rather more pressing matters…at hand.” He punctuates the (rather dreadful, if he’s being honest) pun with a sharp press of his hand as he steers Erik towards his bedroom door.

“Don’t be clever, Charles,” Erik says through clenched teeth, his fingertips digging into the backs of Charles’ hips hard enough to bruise.

“Oh, I’ll be as clever as I please,” Charles chuckles, giving Erik another stroke as he backs him through the bedroom and over to the bed.

“That smart mouth of yours would be put to much better use elsewhere,” Erik grumbles as Charles pushes him down onto the bed (and Charles has to admit, he’s pretty damn impressed by Erik’s eloquence under pressure such as this. He’s sort of taking it as a challenge, actually).

“Oh?” Charles says innocently, dragging Erik’s pants off his thighs with agonizing slowness. “And what might that be?”

Before Erik can reply and tell him in no uncertain terms what he would like him to do with his mouth, Charles leans down and breathes—just one breath, long and warm—against Erik’s underwear.

“For fuck’s _sake_ ,” Erik groans, hips arching desperately towards Charles’ mouth, “You—you fucking—you _demon_ , for god’s sake, you tease, you almighty fucking _tease-_ ”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Charles says demurely before licking a long, leisurely stripe up to the waistband of Erik’s briefs.

“Oh, you fucking-” Erik’s head drops back against the mattress, his hands fisting desperately in Charles’ sheets. “Would you just get _on_ with it?”

“Well, if you insist…” Charles chuckles and, with a smooth and almost embarrassingly practiced motion, pulls down Erik’s underwear and takes him into his mouth. And it’s sort of strange how easy this is because god, it’s been _years_ , but he still thinks he remembers a thing or two.

Just to make sure, he draws back a little and gives his tongue an experimental swirl and yehp, he definitely remembers how to do _that_ because Erik makes a strangled noise, his fingers digging deeper into the sheets. Charles does it again, just for good measure, and this time Erik doesn’t even bother trying to strangle his noises.

And it’s all very familiar but also entirely new, the feeling of Erik’s knife-sharp hipbones where his fingers press into them, the sound of Erik’s voice trying desperately to form coherent words that instantly dissolve into moans, the weight of Erik’s head as it slides through Charles’ mouth. Distantly, he thinks that he likes how Erik tastes, clean and musky and salty all at once and intimately perfect in a way he thought he’d never understand the man.

The thought is enough to make him suck harder, head bobbing faster in time to Erik’s gasping breaths that build to a long, low moan as he comes, sudden and hard, down Charles’ throat. Charles swallows without a thought as Erik collapses, boneless, down against the bed. He sits still for a moment or two, trying to catch his breath, until he’s surprised by the raw rasp of Erik’s voice.

“Where’d you go,” he says faintly, one hand reaching searchingly over the edge of the bed. “C’mere, come back, where’re you-”

“Right here,” Charles says with a smile, and even he’s surprised by the tenderness in his voice as he strips the remnants of Erik’s clothes off his legs and gets slowly to his feet. Once he’s there, he feels Erik’s eyes on him, and, because he is a ridiculous show-off and a bit of a tart when he wants to be, he stretches, long and languid, towards the ceiling.

“My god,” Erik says faintly, and when Charles looks down he’s pushing himself up onto his elbows and looking at Charles like he’s never seen him before. “Get in bed with me right this instant.”

“And I thought _I_ was the bossy one,” Charles remarks, but he pulls back his unmade sheets and slides beneath them nevertheless. With a visible effort, Erik manages to drag himself up the bed and flop down beside Charles, who draws the covers up over the both of them and switches off the bedside lamp.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Erik says faintly from behind him, and Charles rolls over and squints through the darkness to see Erik stretched out face-down beside him, looking thoroughly shell shocked.

“Oh, come on, now,” Charles says playfully. “I didn’t think it was _that_ bad.”

“Shut up,” Erik mutters, but Charles doesn’t miss the long shudder of pleasure that runs down his gloriously bare spine. He just chuckles and slides a little closer to Erik until he can almost feel the heat radiating from his skin. To his delight, Erik takes the hint and wraps an arm around his waist, rolling onto his side and drawing Charles close to his warm chest. And Charles knows that there’s a smug little smile on his lips when he leans up to kiss Erik, and he’s pretty sure Erik can feel it, but he can’t really bring himself to mind.

Erik breaks away from the kiss to yawn, huge and luxurious, and Charles can’t quite stifle his chuckle because that may just be the most precious thing he’s ever seen in his life (and he’s spent an embarrassing amount of his life watching kitten videos on the internet, so). 

“Hush,” Erik says thickly, the word half-swallowed by another yawn pressed into the top of Charles’ head. “S’been a long day.”

“Yes, alright, sleep, you idiot.” Charles smiles, tracing affectionate circles and arabesques into the warm skin of Erik’s back. “The last thing I need is you all exhausted and grumpy in the office tomorrow.”

“Don’t remind me,” Erik groans, nestling deeper into his pillow, arms still locked firmly around Charles’ waist. “Wish I could just…stay…sleep…” He trails off drowsily, and Charles can’t help but smile because _really_ , if he thought the yawn was precious then this sleepy Erik is completely beyond. Within minutes, Erik’s breath has slowed, his grip on Charles gone lax, his heartbeat a steady, gentle tattoo against Charles’ skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this is what you've all been waiting for. <3


	11. Chapter 11

When Charles glances up at Erik through the blue dimness of the dark bedroom, his eyes are shut, his mouth is half-open and slack, and an expression of utter calm has settled onto his sleeping face. Charles, however, is not so lucky. He’s always had this…thing about sleeping after sex; he’s been forced to conclude that there’s something wrong with him, that his system has no idea how to properly dispose of adrenaline. Because once the afterglow fades, that dreamy, floaty nothingness in his brain is replaced by a rush of thoughts darting to and fro and tumbling over each other like madly overexcited puppies (only far less cute and far more annoying). Somehow, he hoped that this time would be different, that the incredibly heady rush of finally fulfilling years of unrequited love would exhaust his brain into submission, but no dice. As ever, the thoughts come rushing back.

Inexplicably, they center on Loki. Because, the resolution of the majority of his personal issues aside, Charles still has a pretty big fucking problem. Actually, several: firstly, his prospective publisher tried to feel him up in the elevator, secondly, his editor in chief wants to brutally murder his prospective publisher for doing so, and thirdly, said prospective publisher is quite possibly a drug dealer. Oh, and, it occurs to him, he hasn’t actually mentioned that last bit to said editor in chief. Bloody _hell_.

“Fuck,” he mutters, unwinding his arms from Erik’s waist and scrubbing his hands over his face. Faintly, Erik groans in protest and shifts slightly. Charles freezes, stilling even his breath in terror. _Pull yourself together, Charles, you’ll wake him up,_ the dwindling sane portion of his brain hisses, only to have the gathering darkness at the back of his mind retort, _what are you doing you can’t be in bed with him you let Loki touch you in the elevator you insane selfish bastard you’re going to pull the whole bloody paper off the deep end with you you fucking lunatic what on earth do you think you’re doing_.

Never mind his thrashing about; at the rate things are going, Charles feels pretty sure that the clamor of his thoughts alone is going to wake Erik up. Well, perhaps there’s nothing for it. With a sigh, he untangles himself from Erik’s arms and slides out of bed, pausing momentarily to make sure that Erik’s eyes stay shut. They do, though he feels searchingly for the space where Charles used to be before folding his arms close to his chest with a sleepy little exhalation that makes Charles’ heart whimper and hide in the deepest recesses of his chest. He ignores it for the moment, steps into a pair of jeans lying abandoned on the floor, and slips out of the room.

There’s a moment of hesitation in the living room as he casts about for a sweatshirt of some sort, but the only thing he finds is his cardigan from earlier today, and that is _so_ not happening, chilly desert night be damned. But that one moment of hesitation leads to another, and then another, and then before he knows what he’s doing he’s pulling open _that_ desk drawer that he never opens and rummaging through it, and suddenly there’s the all-too-familiar crinkle of cellophane as his fingers close around what he didn’t even know he was looking for. But then, of course, he never does in moments like these, does he? The sane portion of his brain that would ordinarily remind him that he was supposed to have quit _months_ ago has gone curiously silent, and before he quite knows what he’s doing he’s standing on his fire escape lighting a cigarette.

 _Shit_ , he thinks faintly as he takes his first draw, but, well, it’s a bit too late for that, now, isn’t it? In for a penny, in for a pound, as they say: he blows a lungful of smoke into the still night air and sucks down another. He always did think better with a little nicotine in his system, anyway—though he’s fairly sure that, jacked up on tobacco or no, there is no way in hell that his brain could think up a way out of this mess.

He leans his forearms against the cold iron railing, blows twin streams of smoke out his nostrils, shivers. The scorching day has, as predicted, turned into another icy desert night, the stars overhead gazing frostily down out of a cloudless, velveteen sky. He taps the ash off the end of his cigarette, watches it fall two stories onto the blacktop of the parking lot below. His eyes drift from the grey smudge on the asphalt to the rather superfluous iron fence at the far edge of the parking lot, and then beyond that to the desert.

Before he moved to Amistad, Charles always thought deserts were…well, _deserted_. He’d seen Lawrence of Arabia a couple times, and “ _there is nothing in the desert and no man needs nothing”_ was pretty much the extent of his understanding of the matter. Like most East Coast city-dwellers accustomed to a temperate climate but raised on spaghetti westerns, he envisioned the desert as a sand-dunes-and-bleached-bones, shimmering-heat-waves-and-hallucinations, vast-gritty-emptiness-dotted-with-the-infrequent-cactus sort of thing.

It was only after he’d actually lived in one for a month or two that he realized that the desert was _full_ of life. Even now, squinting from his fire escape through the darkness and a haze of cigarette smoke, he can make out a teeming tangle of plants silhouetted against the moonlight: the low scrubby outlines of creosote and mesquite bushes, the spiky shocks of yucca leaves, the occasional tall stalk of a lechuguilla, and the gaunt branches of ocotillo reaching upwards like thorny fingers grasping at the moon.

Briefly, Charles considers how long he’d last out there. If he made a run for it now, he’d still have a few hours of darkness before the sun came up and scorched the living daylights out of him. He could make his way south to the border, living off raw lizards and whatever water he could squeeze out of fleshy cactus leaves. From there, it would only be a simple matter of crossing the Rio Grande—or was it the Red River?—or _whichever_ bloody river was down there, and he’d be free. The border patrol didn’t really care about people going _into_ Mexico, did they? He could change his name, brush up on his Spanish, find himself a little farm where he could grow corn or tomatoes or avocados or yucca whatever the hell it was that grew down there, and forget what a newspaper even was…

He laughs at himself, the soft noise loud and sudden in the still air. He wouldn’t last five minutes in the desert; there’s no tea, wifi, or cigarettes out there. Besides, as pleasant a daydream as running off to be a yucca farmer is, he couldn’t ever bring himself to just bail on this mess, to leave the entire staff high and dry. To leave Erik.

Sighing, he props his chin on one hand and uses the other to slide his cigarette between his lips. It’s no use, he thinks as he fills his lungs once more with smoke; he’ll have to figure this one out. Not that there’s anything _to_ figure out, exactly. The choice is clear: lie to the entire staff, Erik included, and land them another potentially criminal publisher, or do the “right” thing and see the paper shut down in less than two weeks.

Clear choices, he reflects bitterly, are by no means synonymous with easy ones.

“Charles?”

Charles chokes on his mouthful of smoke and bends double in an extremely undignified coughing fit. By the time he can straighten up and wipe the tears from his eyes, Erik’s standing on the fire escape beside him, groggy and squinting and clad in nothing but a bed sheet wrapped loosely around his hips. Briefly, Charles considers stubbing out his cigarette but decides that that would only make him look guiltier.

Instead he says, “Drat. I didn’t want to wake you.”

Erik looks at him, looks at the cigarette, opens his mouth, and then, mercifully, closes it. After a few moments of silence, he says, “You’re brooding.”

“Darling, brooding is your department.” Charles half-smiles and ignores how weirdly comfortable the pet name feels on his tongue. “I’m fretting.”

“Then stop,” Erik says simply, stifling a yawn, “And come back to bed.”

“’Fraid you wouldn’t want me, I probably smell like an ashtray.” Just to prove his point, Charles takes another long drag.

“You can’t stay out here all night,” Erik says reasonably, and it occurs to Charles that he never thought the day would come when Erik was the reasonable one.

“I can’t sleep.” It’s not a particularly splendid response, as these things go, so Charles props it up with, “I’ll only keep you awake. Go back to bed, love, it’s really quite alright.”

To his chagrin, Erik does the exact opposite of going back to bed: he leans against the railing beside Charles and wraps an arm around his waist. Briefly, Charles considers protesting, but Erik’s grip is about as solid and immovable as can be, and besides, he’s really quite lovely and warm. There’s another silence as they stand staring out into the desert night, Charles leaning up against Erik and soaking in his body heat.

Eventually the question comes, just as Charles feared it would: “What’s going on, Charles?”

“Just…” Charles sighs, makes a vague sort of gesture with his cigarette that carves a scarlet streak through the air. “You know. Everything. I don’t know.”

Erik studies him for a long, long moment, during which Charles becomes increasingly uncomfortable and squirmy and finally attempts to camouflage himself by expelling a large amount of smoke.

It doesn’t work; Erik coughs once, waves the cloud aside, and says, “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

“For god’s sake,” Charles groans, throwing up his hands in exasperation. “Can’t a man keep anything to himself? Secrets are good for the soul, you know, they blacken it quite nicely—”

“ _Charles_.”

“Oh, all right.” Crossly, he takes another drag and blows out a petulant stream of smoke. “Look, it’s just—it might turn out to be nothing, you know, but—well, today Hank came into my office and said he’d done a bit of research on…er, Mr. Laufeyson.”

Just as he feared, Erik’s face tightens perceptibly at the name, his grip going just the tiniest bit tighter. But, displaying a remarkable amount of self-control, he merely grunts, “And?”

“And…” Charles takes a deep breath; what was it he was saying to himself earlier? In for a penny, in for a pound? “And, um, he searched local court records for, erm, Mr. Laufeyson’s name, and came up with quite a few…sealed files.”

“I see.” Anyone else would think that Erik was taking the news quite well. Anyone else would not notice the vein pulsing faintly in his left temple.

“Hank seemed to think that they were mostly, erm…” Charles swallows hard; his mouth has gone suddenly ashy, and he’s pretty sure it’s not just because of the cigarette smoke. “…drug-related. Er, cases, that is.”

There’s a long pause, during which Charles watches Erik closely for signs of the oncoming eruption. Gradually, they assemble: the eyebrows furrow, the mouth compresses into a thin line, the nostrils flare with a long intake of breath, and then—

“Shit.”

—Charles breathes out. “Shit, indeed,” he echoes weakly, only just refraining from congratulating Erik on what a paragon of self-discipline he’s being tonight. Perhaps being fucked senseless limits his capacity for rage. Charles makes a mental note to study this further in the future.

“Well.” Erik pushes a stray strand of hair out of his eyes and takes another few deep, controlled breaths. Charles does his best not to boggle too obviously; this whole reasonableness thing is really rather unnerving.

Eventually, Erik says, “So does this mean that I can just have him arrested instead of beating the everloving shit out of him?”

“Jesus, Erik.” But Charles is laughing, he can’t hide it, and Erik definitely cracks a smile.

“Problem is,” Charles adds as the laughter fades from his face, “We don’t actually know if he _can_ be arrested.”

“We can still try,” Erik says ominously.

Charles sighs, torn between irritation, amusement, and a faint hint of gratification at Erik’s protectiveness. “Aside from getting a bit fresh with a hapless journalist, I hardly think he’s done anything even remotely questionable. I mean, until we know what’s in those files we can’t just go jumping to the conclusion that he’s some sort of criminal mastermind.”

“Then why don’t we ask?”

“Ask?” Charles repeats blankly. He finds himself wondering, not for the first time tonight, if Erik’s completely lost his mind. “Ask…ask _Loki_? Yes, I can certainly imagine how that conversation would go: ‘Excuse me, Loki, but before you take over the paper we’d just like to double-check that you aren’t a criminal mastermind or anything I hope you don’t mind—’”

“Not _Loki_.” Erik rolls his eyes. “God knows what he’d tell us if we mentioned those files to him. I _meant_ that we should do a bit of sniffing around City Hall. Talk to Bucky maybe, or Thor, or, god help us, Judge Odin. Maybe we can get a look at those files—or at the very least get someone to tell us what the hell this guy’s deal is.”

“Hmm.” Charles takes a long, contemplative drag of his cigarette and blows a thoughtful stream of smoke into the night, nodding slowly. “That…yeah, that sounds like a plan to me.”

“Mm.” Charles glances over to find that Erik is staring at him rather fixedly, dark eyes flickering from his face to the burnt-down cigarette smoldering between his fingers and oh, no, here it comes. Charles steels himself for the inevitable lecture about nicotine and tar and addiction and lungs and arteries and—

“It’s not fair,” Erik says quietly, almost to himself.

Charles, startled out of his momentary panic, can only manage an eloquent “Huh?”

“It’s not fair,” Erik begins again, “That you look so attractive doing something so bad for you.”

“I—I…wha?” Flustered into complete incoherence, Charles feels his face go at least six degrees hotter than the ember of his cigarette. “Erik, what are you—”

“And,” Erik cuts him off firmly, “That I have to make you stop.”

“Wha-” Charles stops short when the cigarette that was just in his hand goes sailing out into the darkness. Perplexed, he watches as his half-empty pack goes after it, followed closely by his lighter.

“Erik,” he says crossly, turning and looking up into the impassive face towering above him, “What the devil—”

“I thought you’d quit, Charles,” Erik says with a sardonic arch of one eyebrow that makes Charles just maybe want to kill him.

“I have, Erik, I just—”

“So why do you keep an entire pack of smokes squirreled away in your desk?”

“I don’t—I didn’t—they weren’t—that is entirely beside the point, Erik, you just _littered-_ ”

“How can you really have quit when you still have the temptation within your reach, Charles, it doesn’t make-”

“The EPA will be after you, you know, the desert is a very delicate environment, and—do you _know_ how long it takes for cellophane to break down-”

“ _Charles_.” Erik’s hands land heavily on his shoulders before sliding down to squeeze his upper arms gently. Erik’s looking down at him, looking _hard_ , and Charles finds himself faintly mesmerized by the sheer earnestness of his gaze.

“Look. I know you’re an adult, and I know you’re a smart man, and I know that _you_ know that smoking is horrible for you. I’m not going to insult your intelligence by telling you that. But, I don’t know, I—look, I just, I’d like to keep you around for a while, all right?” He breathes out a faint, abrupt sound that might just be a laugh, his eyes sliding away from Charles’. “So if we could, you know, keep emphysema off the program that would be-”

“Oh, do be quiet, you preposterous man,” Charles interrupts him, but the apparent irritation of the words is rather undermined by the facts that, a, he can barely get the words out through his delighted chuckle, b, he’s smiling like an idiot, and c, he’s wrapped his arms firmly around Erik’s waist and is burying his face in his chest.

Shockingly, Erik does as he says. They stand there in silence for a few moments, Charles quietly breathing in the scent of Erik’s skin as Erik runs his fingers gently through Charles’ hair (which is most likely a spectacularly tangled combination of bed head and sex hair, and not really in the artful rock star way).

Just as Charles starts to doze off (because he’s a total sucker for people playing with his hair, okay, he can’t help that he reacts like an affection-starved kitten any time someone gives his head a pet), Erik says, in an almost unbearably fond voice,  “Does this mean that we can go back to bed?”

“Mmph,” Charles says by way of reply, to which Erik chuckles and wraps his arms firmly around Charles’ waist and—

“What on—put me _down_ , Erik, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Charles shrieks, feet thrashing ineffectually at the air as Erik slings him— _gently_ , admittedly, like he’s a sack of extremely delicate potatoes—over his shoulder and carries him calmly back into the apartment.

“Hush, Charles, you’ll wake the neighbors,” Erik says blandly, sliding the screen door shut behind him and heading towards the bedroom.

“I don’t care about the bloody neighbors, you madman, put me _down_!” Charles stops short of actually thumping on Erik’s back with his fists like a petulant child, but it’s a close-run thing.

“As you wish,” Erik says, and there’s an ominously mischievous note in his voice but it’s too late because gravity is flip-flopping and before Charles knows what’s happening he’s landing on the bed in a spectacularly undignified sprawl.

“You,” he begins breathlessly, glaring up at Erik, “Are completely and utterly bonkers, d’you know that?”

“Mm.” Absently, Erik unwraps the sheet from his hips and spreads it back over the bed.

“Back injuries are _dreadful_ things, Erik, I don’t know what I’d’ve done if you’d sprained…something…” Charles trails off, his eyes going round because Erik’s _naked_ now, isn’t he, and _Jesus_ how is Charles supposed to concentrate on silly things like words when there’s a sight like that in front of him?

“But I didn’t, did I?” Erik stretches out on the other side of the bed and raises his eyebrows pointedly at Charles’ legs. “Planning to sleep in our trousers, are we?”

“Bloody great idiot,” Charles mutters darkly as he unbuttons his jeans and wriggles out of them. “How am I supposed to get to sleep after a fright like that?”

“Will it help if I pet your hair?”

Charles kicks his jeans onto the floor and turns to find Erik wearing what’s quite possibly the goofiest grin he’s ever seen. To be honest, Charles isn’t quite sure if it’s shit-eating or love-struck or somewhere in between, and, to be more honest, he doesn’t particularly care. What he does do is flop down onto the bed and kiss Erik smack on his stupid, smiling mouth.

“Idiot,” Charles mumbles into the kiss, and feels Erik’s grin widen.

“Thanks,” Erik replies without a trace of irony, pressing the word gently against Charles’ temple. And then, just as promised, his hands sink into Charles’ hair and oh, god, it’s all over. Charles manages to prevent himself from purring, but only just. As he drifts inexorably towards sleep, he thinks vaguely that he still kind of wants to kill Erik. But in the best possible way, of course.

-

The next morning, they go see Sheriff Thor.

After a long and serious council of war—held, of course, over mugs of tea in bed and punctuated frequently by equally long and serious make-out sessions—they decide that he’s their best shot. Because Bucky, as everyone knows, is a bit too good at his job to tell them jack shit, and Judge Odin…well, even Erik admits that Judge Odin is terrifying.

And so, after a brief phone call to Moira to say they’ll be in late (and to cover for the fact that they already are, thanks to the aforementioned making out), they pile into Charles’ car and head for City Hall. And it’s sort of funny, because despite his distinct sense that nothing good is going to come of asking questions about Loki, Charles can’t help but feel…well, pretty good. He’s got Erik’s elbow bumping against his on the center console and Erik’s voice talking back sarcastically at the weatherman on the radio and the ghost of Erik’s lips pretty much all over his face, and he can’t quite bring himself to worry about a thing.

That all changes the moment that they mention Loki Laufeyson to Sheriff Thor.

“LOKI?” Thor booms, leaping to his feet, and Charles is forcibly reminded of why he has to keep telling the interns not to quote Thor in all caps. “LOKI IS HERE?”

“Well, not, er, _here_ here.” Charles glances uncomfortably around Thor’s broom closet of an office, just to be sure. “But he’s, y’know, around. Somewhere in town, I presume.”

“It is not wise to presume in any dealings with Loki,” Thor proclaims thunderously, and Charles finds himself wishing, not for the first time, that the town’s only sheriff had not learned English from _The Once and Future King_.

“Why? Who _is_ he, Thor?” Erik demands impatiently, and Thor’s already furrowed brow darkens into a veritable canyon.

“He is…” Thor sighs, heavily, his impossibly broad shoulders slumping fractionally. “He is my brother.”

“Your…your brother,” Charles repeats after a considerable pause. He feels his brain begin to grind and spark as it attempts to find a single similarity between cool, dapper, silver-tongued Loki and the sheriff who wrestles wild pigs for fun and speaks English only slightly more modern than the Canterbury Tales. Exchanging a perplexed glance with Erik, he says, “Well that’s…lovely, Thor, I had no idea that you two were-”

“He also happens to be the biggest narcotics kingpin this side of the Rio Grande.”

Charles spins around to find Bucky Barnes leaning nonchalantly against Thor’s doorframe.

“And, more importantly, he’s just been moved up to numero uno on our most-wanted list,” Bucky continues, pushing off the doorframe and stepping into Thor’s office. “So if you wouldn’t care to repeat your little fiasco with Stark, I wouldn’t trust the guy.”

“Let me get this straight,” Erik says slowly, turning back to Thor. “You’re a sheriff, your father is a judge, and your brother is a _drug dealer_?”

“He’s adopted,” Thor admits with a frown.

“He’s also considerably more than a drug dealer,” Bucky puts in. “We’re not talking about some creep who makes a couple bucks handing out Special K to school kids here. The guy’s practically his own goddamn cartel. I think even the Mexicans are afraid of him, and the Mexicans aren’t afraid of their own goddamn government.”

“We must capture him, Bucky,” Thor says earnestly. “He will be slippery as a snake, but he must be apprehended and brought to justice for his crimes.”

“The word we use is _arrested_ , Thor, we’re not hunting big game here for Chrissakes.” Bucky shoots Charles and Erik a long-suffering look that seems to say, “See what I have to deal with?”

“It troubles me greatly that my brother has returned,” Thor frowns, dropping back into his desk chair with a thump that shakes the floor. “I fear he is up to some mischief.”

“No _shit_ , Thor,” Bucky snaps, passing a hand over his eyes, and in a flash of reporterly insight Charles sees just how _tired_ he is, how between Thor and the FBI he’s got cases coming in faster than he can humanly prosecute them, how Judge Odin is itching for a trial already and this Stark business is going a lot slower than he expected—and, okay, maybe last night’s endorphins are making him a little more magnanimous than usual, but for a moment or two Charles actually manages to feel _sorry_ for Bucky Barnes.

That compassion vanishes mere seconds later when Bucky looks at him and says, “You’re going to help us catch him.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Charles says in the exact same instant that Erik says, “Oh, _fuck_ no.”

“Bucky has sense,” Thor says, furrowing his brows in his best impression of thought. “My brother will not go quietly like a lamb to slaughter; he must be trapped like a wolf.”

“You’ve established a relationship,” Bucky adds quickly, trying and failing to crowd out Thor and his horrific metaphors. “He doesn’t know you’re wise to him—you’re our best shot at finding him.”

“I’m sorry,” Erik says, in a tone that suggests that he isn’t, at all, “But isn’t arresting people kind of, you know, your department? Since we pay you all those hard-earned tax dollars to, you know, _fucking arrest people-”_

“Don’t you get clever with me, Lehnsherr,” Bucky snarls, the sympathetic exhaustion on his face replaced by the ugly beginnings of a threat. “Or do I need to remind you that Loki is the second international crime lord you’ve gotten palsy with in the past, oh, month or so?”

“Now, let’s just be reasonable here,” Charles breaks in, putting a staying hand on Erik’s forearm to prevent him from actually leaping at Bucky like an enraged, feral dog. “We’re—we’re just reporters, Bucky, honestly, what good could we really do? We just _write_ about criminals, we’d be total rubbish at actually _catching_ one, come on.”

“Look, you think I’m doing this because I want to?” Bucky folds his arms, shaking his head and making a face that is far too condescending for Charles’ liking. “Believe me, trusting you two boneheads with something half as important as this would at least double my odds of heart failure, to say nothing of what it would to do my fucking digestion. But at this point, I don’t have many other options.”

“Here’s one: go fuck yourself.” Erik’s glaring, eyes burning with rage like Charles hasn’t seen in a long, long time, and wow, he’d really sort of forgotten just how fucking terrifying his boss—his _boyfriend_ , sort of, Christ—could be.

“Do not speak in such an insubordinate manner to Bucky!” Thor roars, leaping up from his seat, but Bucky waves him off.

“Down, Thor, it’s all right.” He turns to Charles, a vague sort of appeal in his eyes that even Charles, the self-proclaimed big-hearted softy with a total weak spot for puppy eyes, does not find persuasive in the least. “Look, we’ll do this right, it’ll be totally safe, you’ll have all the fucking protection and backup you could ever hope for. It’s not like we’re just throwing you to the fucking wolves here.”

“I—I’m sorry,” Charles says, faintly, because quite frankly the very _thought_ of getting anywhere near Loki and his wandering bloody fingers is making him vaguely queasy. “But I just—I really don’t think that’s a good idea-”

“Basically,” Erik steps in, “What Charles is trying to say is that you’re _fucking insane_ if you think he’s going anywhere _near_ that son of a bitch ever again.”

“Why?” Bucky asks, suddenly keen and sharp and very, _very_ interested. “What did he do?”

“Fuck,” Erik mutters under his breath, and Charles has to stifle the urge to sigh and bury his face in his hands because of all the people on the planet that he would prefer not to discuss this with, Thor Odinson and Bucky bloody Barnes may very well be in competition for number one.

“What,” Bucky repeats, moving a step closer and looking intently from Erik to Charles, his eyes bright and searching like a bird of prey’s, “Did he-”

“This isn’t a fucking _deposition_ , Barnes,” Erik snaps. “And the answer is still no.”

That stops Bucky momentarily, makes him frown and rub a frustrated hand over his eyes again. When they reopen, they look far less predatory and far more human, which is both reassuring and decidedly not.

“I can make you,” he says slowly, heavily, like a man who is far more used to issuing threats than pleas, “A deal.”

“ _Fuck_ you, Bucky, I fucking said-”

“We’re getting close to Stark’s money,” Bucky says, and now he’s just looking at Charles, who distinctly feels his heart sink because he has a rather nastily clear idea of where this is going. “Like, crack the last few codes tomorrow close. But if you do this for us, I can…slow things down a little. Give you some more time.”

Erik opens his mouth, his next string of profanities visibly assembling themselves on his lips, but Charles gets there first and says, “How long?”

“Five days,” Bucky says, and Charles can feel Erik’s horrified stare burning one side of his face like the sun but he _doesn’t care_ , he _doesn’t_ because he will gladly and willingly throw his health, safety, and sanity to the bloody winds if it will save this bloody paper.

“A week,” he counters, crossing his arms. He doesn’t much care for haggling as a rule, has always found it distasteful in this awful snobby way that reminds him far too much of his mother, but when it comes right down to it he can argue like a European grandmother in a fishmonger’s, make no mistake about it.

And it seems as though Bucky sees that in Charles’ eyes, because after a moment’s narrow-eyed consideration he backs down and concedes, “Fine. A week. But you are calling Loki right this instant to set up a meeting.”

“Fine,” Charles shoots right back, and shoves his hand into his pocket. To fish out his phone, of course—definitely not to keep it from trembling.

“Are you fucking _insane_?” Erik demands as Charles unlocks his Blackberry and starts scrolling through his contacts. “You can’t do this-”

“I don’t see how we’ve got much of a choice, Erik,” Charles says crisply, doing his best to focus on the names flying past his eyes and not Erik’s strangled noise of outrage.

“Of course we’ve got a _choice_ , Charles, what the _hell_ are you talking about?”

“I’m talking,” Charles says, very, very calmly because the only alternative involves screaming and sobbing and that would be rather gauche considering the circumstances, “About saving the paper, Erik.”

“At least _someone_ around here has some sense,” Bucky mutters.

Several things happen at approximately the same time: Erik makes an _inhuman_ noise and lunges towards Bucky, Thor’s chair hits the wall with a bang as he leaps to his feet and thunders, “YOU SHALL NOT HARM THE PROSECUTOR, MAN OF PAPER OF NEWS,” and Charles slams his phone down onto Thor’s desk and shouts at the top of his lungs, “ _Would you all just_ stop?”

That, at least, creates a silence (albeit the awkward, shocked kind that is the product of three brains saying _what the fuck_ simultaneously) into which Charles says, very calmly, “What shall I tell him, Bucky?”

“Um,” says Bucky, blinking for a moment or two before he manages to make his brain stop saying _what the fuck_ and start working again. “Set up a meeting, somewhere public. Act normal.” He pauses, as if remembering what the definition of normal is and how spectacularly Charles fails to meet it, then adds, “Don’t say anything that could tip him off, yeah? This is our only shot; we don’t want him getting spooked and hightailing it over the border.”

“Right,” Charles says briskly, picking up his phone and trying to stop his heart from clawing its way up his trachea.

“Charles, think this through,” Erik says, practically _pleading_ , and great, now Charles has got a clenching stomach to accompany his rock-climbing heart. “The guy’s fucking dangerous.”

“I have thought it through,” Charles says, which is a lie because all he’s thinking is _one more week_.

He’s still thinking that when he presses call.

As the phone rings, he keeps his eyes fixed firmly on the ground between his feet and not, just for example, on Erik’s anxious frown or Bucky’s eager, glittering eyes. After the third ring, just when Charles is beginning to quail at the thought of not getting an answer and having to summon up the courage to make this call _again_ , there’s a faint click, a moment or two of silence, and then, at long last, a voice.

“ _Charles_ ,” Loki says, sounding altogether too pleased for Charles’ liking. “What an unexpected pleasure.”

“We need to talk,” Charles says abruptly, suddenly overcome with nerves. He takes a few deep, quiet breaths and tries to ignore how Bucky winces at his awkwardness.

Fortunately, Loki doesn’t seem fazed in the slightest: “Ah. And how does your…charming, erm, friend feel about this?”

“He doesn’t know,” Charles says all in a rush, and that’s when the thought occurs to him. Why bother trying to act normal? He’s going to sound horribly shaken no matter how hard he tries; why not milk that for all it’s worth? “Th-that is,” he stammers, determinedly ignoring Bucky’s horrified expression, “He’s not—he’s not here right now. We—we got in a bit of a fight, and I—I just-”

“Calm down, Charles, it’s all right,” Loki says soothingly, and Charles could almost believe him if it weren’t for the memory of those fingers sneaking across his collar bone.

“I need to see you,” he says pathetically, and now it’s Erik who looks horrified and Bucky who looks, worryingly, rather impressed.

“I understand perfectly,” Loki purrs. “Where would you like to meet?”

“There’s a diner,” Charles says as the memory of the giant silver pillbox flashes suddenly into his head. “Just off the interstate, I—I think it’s exit six, but I’m not sure…oh, god…”

“Charles, you’re an absolute wreck. What has that dreadful German done to you?”

“N-nothing, I just—please, just hurry, I can’t—I don’t know what to do-”

“Shh, don’t you fret.” Loki’s voice is like a lullaby, and Charles can’t help but wonder how he ever thought the man was anything other than a master criminal. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. We’ll get this sorted out, my friend.”

“Thank you,” Charles murmurs brokenly. “Please hurry.”

“Give me forty minutes, pet. I’ll be there.”

The line goes dead and Charles lowers the phone from his ear slowly, his heartbeat roaring in his ears like the ocean.

“Well, I’ll be,” Bucky says slowly, and, okay, he is _definitely_ impressed and this is _definitely_ weird. “Somebody oughta nominate you for a fucking Oscar, Xavier.”

“He’ll be there in forty minutes,” Charles says weakly, stowing his phone in his pocket. “I hope to god you’re ready.”

“We will be,” Bucky says firmly. “Thor, get Barton and call the Feds. We’re bringing in Laufeyson.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this took so long, guys! I'm not abandoning this, I promise. It's just that school's started up again and I'm swamped with work, so updates are going to take a little longer from now on. But I hope you enjoy this chapter and keep reading! Thanks for sticking around. <3

“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” Erik says miserably for the fiftieth time as they pull up in front of the diner.

“And I can’t believe you insisted on coming,” Charles rejoins, scanning the parking lot and letting out a breath of relief when he sees that it is black motorbike-free. “What could you _possibly_ hope to achieve by being here to see this?”

“I wasn’t about to let you do this alone, Charles,” Erik snaps as Charles parks the car and shuts off the engine. “If you’re going to go through with this idiocy, the least I can do is be there to _fucking kill him_ if he lays a finger on you-”

“Erik.” Charles cups his jaw with one hand, his thumb brushing across one rough, unshaven cheek. “It’s going to be all right. All of Amistad’s law enforcement is going to be hiding in the kitchen to make sure that I’m safe. All that _you_ have to do is restrain yourself from popping out and throttling him before they get the chance to arrest him. D’you think you can manage that?”

“I just wish it didn’t have to be you,” Erik says sullenly, and Charles is suddenly afraid that his heart is going to burst because _fuck his life_ , why is this man so adorable?

“I know, love, so do I.” He sighs, then leans in to press a gentle kiss to Erik’s lips because oh, _right_ , he can do that now, can’t he? Despite the fact that everything else is currently complete and utter shit, that, at least, is pretty fucking fantastic.

What’s also fantastic is the way that Erik kisses back, firm and demanding and just this side of gentle, like he’s asking for reassurance, for a promise. And Charles is more than willing to give him that, letting his mouth fall open and his other hand curl around the back of Erik’s neck and his eyes slip shut as Erik’s tongue finds its way—slowly, searchingly, so different from the desperation of last night—into his mouth.

And then, just as his heart is beginning to settle back into its proper place, a sudden tap on the driver’s side window sends it rocketing back into his mouth. He jerks away from Erik and turns to look directly into Bucky’s distinctly unamused face on the other side of the glass. The prosecutor, the sheriff, and two FBI agents have all piled out of their undercover car, a beat-up old pickup truck that barely looks capable of holding one person, let alone four. As Thor, Agent Coulson, and Agent Rhodes (Agent Fury being, apparently, too badass for grunt work) head towards the diner, Bucky rolls his eyes at Charles and makes an impatient motion that seems to suggest that Charles should stop making out and start following them.

“Oh,” Charles says faintly, feeling a sudden burst of heat explode across his face, because of all people to see that, _why_ did it have to be Bucky? “I guess that we should-”

“Charles,” Erik says heavily, and when Charles turns back to him he’s greeted with what may quite possibly be one of Erik’s most agonized facial expressions—perhaps _the_ most, judging from the way Charles’ heart practically cries out in pain at the sight. “I want you to be careful.”

“Of course I will,” Charles says gently, taking both of Erik’s hands in his and forcing a smile. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

-

He’s still telling himself that fifteen minutes later, repeating it over and over in his head like a mantra or perhaps an extremely bizarre pop song, when Loki walks through the door.

 _Whatever you do,_ the echo of Bucky whispers in his ear, _Don’t look towards the kitchen_. So he doesn’t: instead, he stares bleakly down at the coffee cup on the table in front of him and doesn’t even glance up until Loki slides into his booth. When he does, he’s pretty sure that his face has composed itself into his most pathetic expression, but it’s by no means an act; the very sight of that slicked-back hair and well-tailored suit is more than enough to turn him into the wreck he’s supposedly pretending to be. _Well, that’s method acting for you_ , he thinks grimly, and wishes fervently that he could just die.

“Charles, darling,” Loki murmurs, all wide-eyed consternation and concern as he leans across the table. “What on earth is the matter?”

“I—nothing,” Charles mumbles, reaching for his coffee and wondering vaguely if he should be gratified that his hand is shaking.

He gets his answer all too quickly when Loki reaches out and clasps his hand between both of his—ostensibly to still its trembling, but more likely because he’s a _fucking creepy bastard_ and Charles wishes more than anything that the cops would just hurry the fuck up. Because, truth be told, he wasn’t expecting to be this…this _affected_ , this shaken up by Loki’s reappearance. But hell, if Loki was intimidating before, now he’s bloody _terrifying_. Because when Charles looks at him now, he doesn’t just see sharp green eyes and jet-black suits and pale, spidery fingers; he sees a crime lord, a drug kingpin, a ruthless killer responsible for the deaths of god knows how many. He sees the inside of an elevator and a hand reaching to unbutton his shirt and feels distinctly like he’s going to throw up…

“You’ve gone green in the face,” Loki frowns, squeezing Charles’ hand between his very, very cold palms. “My god, what’s happened?”

“It’s just…Erik…” Charles gulps in a breath of air, avoiding those bright, sympathetic eyes because it’s all such a _lie_ , isn’t it, this whole charming Englishman routine, all the pleasantries and compliments and flirting, it’s all a magic trick, a pretty distraction to make you look away from the cards up his sleeve and the false bottom in his top hat, his ambition and his greed and his ruthless manipulation and Charles is going to be _sick_ , he really is, because this man tried to undress him in an elevator—and not, Charles realizes only now, because he loved Charles or liked him or found him attractive or any of that preposterous romantic bullshit that Charles had tried to believe, but simply because he _could_ , because he knew how badly Charles needed a publisher and how far he was willing to go to get one but he was _wrong_ , wasn’t he, and Charles is about to show him just bloody wrong he was.

That’s right about when the feds come out of the kitchen.

They’ve already got their guns drawn and aimed directly at Loki’s head as they flank the booth, Coulson on the right and Rhodes on the left, and Charles watches an eerie mask of calm settle over Loki’s pale face as he looks up at his soon-to-be-captors.

“Put your hands flat on the table, Mr. Laufeyson,” Coulson says evenly. “Palms down, fingers spread.” Without looking down, Loki does as he’s told, releasing Charles’ hand and flattening his hands on the greasy tabletop in one easy, languid movement.

“I didn’t know we were having company, Charles,” he says coolly, his eyes darting back and forth between the twin barrels trained on his forehead. “What a pleasant surprise.”

“Get to your feet slowly,” Coulson orders, “And step out of the booth.”

“Certainly,” Loki says graciously, and that’s when everything goes to shit.

Charles knows something’s wrong when Loki lurches to his feet, clumsy and awkward and completely lacking his usual grace and fluidity. And then the hand that he’s reached out to steady himself closes around Charles’ wrist like a vice, and then Charles is being jerked across the table like a rag doll, and then, before he quite knows what’s happening, there’s a gun to his head.

“Well, this is a bit awkward, gentlemen,” Loki says conversationally, cocking the gun with a click that sounds like a thunderclap against Charles’ skull. “But I’m going to have to ask you to put your guns down.”

“Think about what you’re doing, Laufeyson,” Rhodes cautions him, his voice curiously muffled in Charles’ ears. “This man is an innocent-”

“ _Down_ ,” Loki snarls, jabbing the barrel into Charles’ temple so viciously that he can’t help but let out a faint whimper of pain. After that, two handguns clatter to the floor in quick succession, and Loki kicks them down to the far end of the diner without ever taking his eyes off Charles.

“I do wish that you hadn’t done this, Charles,” Loki says, still horribly, unsettlingly calm as he grabs Charles by the collar and drags him to his feet. “We were at the beginning of such a lovely relationship.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Charles protests weakly, because that’s what Bucky told him: _if things go bad, which they won’t, but if they do, you had nothing to do with any of it. Got that?_

“Indeed,” Loki says, sarcasm oozing from each syllable, and Charles feels his mouth go dry because he is completely, utterly, and inescapably fucked. “So the FBI just happened to be lying in wait in the diner that you suggested? Don’t _lie_ to me, Charles.”

He punctuates the last words by grinding the gun into Charles’ head so hard that a white flash of pain streaks across his vision like lightning, making his knees go weak and his body crumple helplessly towards the floor. With an impatient growl, Loki hauls him upright again, and it’s only then that he becomes dimly aware of the fact that that faint, pathetic sobbing noise is coming from him.

“Well, don’t act like you didn’t bring this upon yourself,” Loki scolds him, and Charles practically chokes because that sounded far too much like his mother and that is just too bloody bizarre for him to handle right now.

“I would have taken care of you, you know,” Loki adds in a silky whisper that makes every hair on his body stand on end. “Published your little paper, kept you and all your reporters safe, moved you into a shiny new office, maybe even given you a bonus or two. And all I asked for was a few little favors in return…but then you had to go and do _this_.” He fists the non-gun-holding hand in Charles’ shirt and shakes him once, twice, three times and oh, god, that nausea from earlier is creeping up on him again, rising in the back of his throat like an acid tide and oh, god, he’s going to be sick-

Then, the kitchen door bangs open again, and Loki goes very, very still.

“Brother.” Charles looks up to see Thor looming, massive, in the doorway, something very much like sadness in his eyes. And all of a sudden, Charles finds himself wondering whether or not Loki is actually _breathing_ , and when he looks out of the corner of his eye he realizes that that pale face is frozen in something that might just be panic.

Through the fear, the tears, the blood trickling from his temple and the queasiness churning in the pit of his stomach, Charles realizes that now would be a really great time to run.

It ends up being less of a run, really, and more of a lurch, or a scramble if you will, or, most accurately, a sort of wobbly-kneed top-heavy doubled-over crab stagger that, by some miracle, carries him out of Loki’s grasp and into the waiting arms of Agent Rhodes. Agent Coulson, meanwhile, leaps into action: he snatches a salt shaker off of the counter behind him, flings its contents into Loki’s face, and confiscates his gun while he’s still sputtering and disoriented.

“Loki,” Thor says sadly, reaching down and lifting his brother off the ground so easily that it’s like he’s a person-shaped sack of nothing. “I knew I should not have let you out of my sight.”

“Handcuffs, Thor,” Coulson reminds him patiently. “We talked about this, remember?”

“Oh? Indeed,” Thor says distractedly, unhooking a pair from his belt and clasping one cuff around Loki’s wrist and the other around his own.

“That’s…not really how they work, Thor,” Coulson sighs.

“This guy’s supposed to be a sheriff?” Rhodes says incredulously.

“Let me go, you oaf,” Loki’s hissing, the panic in his eyes replaced by a hatred so fierce that it makes Charles’ extremities go cold and sweaty.

“I fear that father will be most displeased with you,” Thor frowns, setting Loki back on his feet.

“ _No!_ ” Loki shrieks, yanking futilely at his handcuff and oh, okay, now that panic’s come back and mixed with the hatred and Charles is actually pretty sure that _all_ of him has gone cold and sweaty and how on _earth_ was he _ever_ attracted to _that_?

“Come along, brother.” Thor drags him—actually, physically _drags_ him, those black Italian leather shoes skidding uselessly on the grimy linoleum—down the length of the diner. “The time has come to put an end to your foolishness.”

“No!” Loki cries again, his eyes gone completely wild, and Charles has to look away because it’s really kind of painful to watch him come unhinged like this. “Don’t—don’t take me to father! _Please_ , Thor, I’m begging you, please, _no_! Ch-charles, don’t let them do this—he’ll have me killed, please, you can’t let them—Charles, _please_ -”

And in that moment, for just a split second, Charles wonders if he’s done the right thing. Because there’s genuine pain, genuine _terror_ in Loki’s voice, and Charles feels the bottom drop out of his stomach because _Christ_ , what if he’s gotten this all wrong? Granted, Loki is still a creepy, horrible person by all means, but does being creepy and horrible really deserve this? Does he really deserve the humiliation, the cruel irony of being arrested by his own brother and tried by his own father—who, incidentally, happens to be the most terrifying person in town? Charles looks down the diner at Loki, so tiny and helpless in Thor’s wake—and, god help him, he actually starts to feel _sorry_ for the man.

“Follow me, Mr. Xavier,” Agent Rhodes says gently, taking Charles by the arm and leading him carefully in the opposite direction. “Don’t you listen to a word he says.”

“No,” Charles says weakly, and then he thinks of wandering hands and glittering eyes and the cold, cold barrel of a gun pressing mercilessly down against his skull—and takes a very, very deep breath. “No, I most certainly won’t.”

-

Fifteen minutes later, Charles is sitting on the back of an ambulance arguing with a very calm, very adamant paramedic who absolutely refuses to let him leave.

“No, look, I’m perfectly fine,” he saying crossly. “I’ve given my statement to at _least_ six different people, I _don’t_ need to go to the hospital, and would you _please_ take this stupid bloody blanket off me?”

“It’s for shock, sir,” she says calmly, replacing the blanket around his shoulders like some sort of hideous, neon orange shawl.

“But I’m not _in_ shock,” he protests, trying to shrug the damn thing off for what feels like the seven hundredth time.

“That’s as may be, sir, but we’re still going to need to take you to the hospital to get checked out.”

“ _No_ ,” Charles snaps, and okay, maybe he’s being childish but he’s feeling headachey and nauseous and the tiniest bit shaky and is _really_ not in the mood to prevent Erik from physically assaulting paramedics, which is looking more and more likely as the minutes drag on.

“Alright, that’s enough, let him go,” Bucky orders, striding up and putting a hand on the paramedic’s shoulder.

“Thank you, Bucky,” Charles sighs in relief as the paramedic makes a protesting sort of noise and says, “But sir, this is highly irregular, we really should-”

“Thank you, Miss Hill, but he seems perfectly fine to me,” Bucky interrupts her. “Off you go, Charles.”

“Thank you,” Charles says again, flinging the hated shock blanket off his shoulders and sliding off the back of the ambulance. “You don’t know how much-”

“Yeah, yeah.” Bucky rolls his eyes and shoos him away. “Get back there and deal with your boyfriend before he kills someone.”

“R-right,” Charles mutters, going slightly red because _right_ , yeah, that’s Erik, that’s his boyfriend, his _actual_ boyfriend now, not just his “everyone makes stupid jokes about the two of you being boyfriends” boyfriend, but his actual, proper, real-life boyfriend who’s standing on the far side of the yellow police tape and staring at the ground like he’s trying to set it on fire with his eyes.

“Erik,” Charles calls softly, ducking past the tape, and then Erik looks up at him and he’s practically knocked backwards by the naked terror in his eyes, the love and pain and anxiety battling plainly across his face as he takes one step towards Charles, and then another, and then another and then stops short just in front of him.

“Jesus, Charles,” he says, very, very quietly, his hands reaching uncertainly towards him before drawing back and balling themselves up into nervous fists and oh, god, he’s just so precious that Charles could _cry_ , he really could.

Except he doesn’t, of course, because Erik is obviously upset and Charles bursting into tears would probably not improve that state of affairs, so instead of crying he takes a step forward and buries his face in Erik’s shoulder and wraps his arms around his waist and takes a deep, deep breath. And it’s kind of beautiful, actually, because Erik’s warm and solid and smells like detergent and aftershave and his apartment— _their_ apartment, and okay, Charles might just being crying. But only a little bit.

“Jesus, Charles,” Erik says again, and now his hands are moving all over Charles like they’re checking him for cracks and holes and broken bones, sliding up his back and brushing across his shoulders and down his arms and back up to flutter nervously around his bandaged head like they don’t quite know what to do.

“Hi,” Charles says, muffled, into his shirt, and then Erik makes a strangled sort of noise that sounds like it’s trying to be a laugh and presses his nose into Charles’ hair.

“Why does this—why do you always have to do this, Charles, why does this always happen?”

Something about the broken quality of Erik’s voice hints that now would be a really good time for Charles to unbury his face from Erik’s shirt and look up at him reassuringly, so that is what he does. Or, at least, he manages the unburying and looking up part; the reassuring bit is rather more difficult than he expected, so the best he can do is a wobbly sort of smile.

“To be perfectly honest, darling, I have no idea,” he confesses, and in Erik’s eyes he sees a flying tree branch and a hospital room and a bloodstained bandage far too much like the one he’s wearing now and he wants to make it go _away_ , to erase the anxiety and see Erik smile again. But he’s not exactly sure how to do that—not exactly world champion of dealing with feelings, remember—so instead he says, “I suppose that I’m just accident prone.”

“Accident prone, _Jesus_ ,” Erik groans, reaching down and taking Charles’ face in his hands (very, very carefully). “Shut the hell up and come here.”

“Yes, sir,” Charles mumbles and then Erik’s kissing him, deep and desperate but still careful somehow, without teeth or tongue –so careful it would really be chaste, actually, if it weren’t so clearly full of need.

And then Erik pulls back and whispers against his lips, “Do you remember what I said last night?”

Charles can’t help but grin because, well, that’s just _too_ easy, isn’t it? “You said a lot of things last night, Mr. Lehnsherr,” he murmurs. “You’ll have to be more specific than-” He breaks off as Erik shuts him up with a kiss.

“Don’t be a smartass now, Charles, you nearly died,” Erik mutters as he pulls away again.

“I will be a smartass whenever I please, Erik, it’s not like I can help it-”

“I said,” Erik cuts him off again, his arms encircling Charles’ shoulders and squeezing, gently, “That I’d like to keep you around for a while. Is that—is it too much to ask that you not put yourself in a life-threatening situation for a week or two-”

This time it’s Charles’ turn to shut him up with a kiss because _really_ , he’s just getting hysterical now, and anyway if he keeps talking like that Charles is going to start crying properly and that would be hideously embarrassing and really the last thing that anyone needs to see.

“I mean it,” Erik says earnestly, minutes later when they’ve finally pulled apart. “You need to stick around.”

“Of course I’m going to stick around. Don’t be ridiculous.” Charles reaches up and smoothes a stray strand of dark hair back from Erik’s temple, an impossibly fond smile spreading across his face. “You need someone to look after you. You’d be absolute rubbish without me.”

“Yeah,” Erik says faintly, giving Charles a long, long look. “Yeah, I think I probably would.”

“Come on,” Charles smiles, wrapping one arm around Erik’s waist and leading him towards the car. “Let’s go home.”

“Not that I don’t wholeheartedly agree with that idea,” Erik begins slowly, draping one arm across Charles’ shoulders as they walk, “But shouldn’t you be, you know, clamoring desperately to get back to the office?”

“Are you kidding?” Charles gives him an incredulous look, unlocking his car. “You are in absolutely no condition to go to work.”

Erik stares at him for another moment. “You are _such_ an idiot.”

“You’re the one who’s kissing me,” Charles replies cheerily, pulling open the driver’s side door.

“Yeah, and I’m seriously reconsidering that decision,” Erik grumbles. “Give me the keys, I’m driving.”

“But-”

“ _Charles_.”

“Oh, all right.”

-

They spend the remainder of the day on the couch—or at least, they would if Charles had his way. What actually ends up happening is that Charles spends most of the day on the couch while Erik fusses over him.

“For god’s sake, Erik,” Charles says for what feels like the five hundredth time, looking over the back of the couch at his mad, impossible boyfriend who is currently digging through the freezer in a desperate search for the bag of frozen peas that they don’t have. “My head feels _fine_ , honestly, the ibuprofen really helped-”

“I should go to the store,” Erik mutters, shutting the freezer and stooping down to peer into the fridge. “We’re out of milk, too.”

“You hate milk,” Charles points out, resting his chin on the top edge of the couch.

“Yes, but you’re going to want tea.” Erik shuts the fridge and reaches for Charles’ notebook on the counter (the one labeled “Boring Apartment Stuff” where he writes all his shopping lists and to-do lists and all the other dull things that adults are supposed to keep track of in their daily lives). “And I want to get something for dinner.”

“If you make me eat soup,” Charles says petulantly, “I swear to god that I will disembowel you.”

“I was thinking salmon, actually.” Erik glances up from the notebook he’s scribbling in and flashes Charles a quick, ironic smile. “Need anything else?”

“Just you,” Charles sighs under his breath, slumping back down against the couch cushions. And maybe he’s being just the tiniest bit immature, but his head still hurts and there’s a particularly annoying episode of America’s Next Top Model on TV and he nearly got taken hostage by a multinational crime lord a few hours ago so _really_ , he can’t help but think he deserves a bit of a cuddle. Not, of course, that he’s going to ask for one—that would just be humiliating—but he’s not above a bit of well-placed sulking.

“I heard that,” Erik smirks, rounding the couch and balancing himself on Charles’ desk as he pulls on his shoes. “I’ll be quick, promise.” He leans over Charles and presses a gentle kiss to his forehead before murmuring, “And then I’ll cuddle you to your heart’s content.”

“Who said I wanted one?” Charles huffs, frowning as Erik straightens up, shrugs on his leather jacket and heads for the door because he really _hates_ it when Erik reads his mind like that.

“Don’t injure yourself while I’m gone, dear,” Erik calls over his shoulder, and before Charles can think up a sufficiently cheeky response he’s gone.

Instead, he lets out a grumpy sort of noise and settles back against the pillows that Erik insisted on propping up for him and wonders vaguely when they became an old married couple and how he failed to notice. Because it’s really sort of weird and backwards, isn’t it, the domesticity coming before the sex or even the mutual admission of feelings. He’s pretty certain that this is the first time he’s ever moved in with anyone before he’s had sex with them, and the result is…not unpleasant, that’s for sure. Two years of friendship and nearly a month of cohabitation have made things so easy, so comfortable, so blessedly free of the awkwardness that usually accompanies brand-new relationships. It feels like they’ve been together for ages, and now that he thinks about it, they…kind of have.

Looking back, he can’t help but wonder why it took them so bloody long to admit it.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The good news is, I've finished writing! The bad news is, there are only two chapters and an epilogue left. Anyway, sorry for the long wait, but I hope you enjoy.

Charles is awoken by the gentle press of lips against his forehead, the rasp of an unshaven jaw against his skin, and a low, amused rumble of a voice: “Rise and shine, sunbeam.”

“Mm,” Charles groans drowsily, instinctively reaching up and drawing that warm mouth down to his own, smiling at the scrape of stubble under his fingers. “You need a shave,” he murmurs.

“And you need to brush your teeth,” Erik chuckles, and Charles’ eyes blink open to see him straightening up and dragging the back of one hand across his mouth.

“Oh, drat.” Charles breathes into one cupped hand and wrinkles his nose in distaste. “Morning breath?”

“More like…” Erik glances down at his watch, “Evening breath, but sure.”

Charles pushes himself up onto his elbows, wincing at the unexpected throb of his head. “How long’ve I been asleep? And,” he adds, inhaling deeply through his nose and feeling his eyes go wide, “What on earth is that heavenly smell?”

“Just a few hours.” Erik presses him back down onto his pillows with one insistent hand, and Charles is embarrassingly pliant under his touch. “And that’s the salmon in the oven. Dinner’s nearly ready.”

“You’re a _saint_ ,” Charles sighs, letting his head sink luxuriously back into his pillow. “A perfect, gorgeous, salmon-cooking, Jewish saint.”

“We don’t have those,” Erik points out absently, frowning distractedly over his shoulder at the kitchen. And Charles feels his heart sink a little, because he recognizes that faraway look in his eyes and that troubled quirk at the inner corner of his right eyebrow, and they aren’t exactly what you’d call harbingers of good news.

“What is it?” Charles asks gently, and he can’t quite shake the tentative feeling of holding a handful of crumbs out to a nervous, flighty bird.

“Nothing.” Erik shakes his head, but he can’t shake that distracted look off his face. “I should—I’m going to go check on dinner-”

“Erik.” And, okay, it’s really kind of gratifying how the mere tone of Charles’ voice makes Erik freeze in his tracks. Granted, he doesn’t actually turn back around, but at least it’s something. Charles can work with this.

“Erik, if we’re going to do…this,” he says quietly, not even daring to put a name to whatever it is they’ve gotten themselves into now, “You’re going to have to share what’s troubling you.” After a pause, he adds, “With me.” Just in case it wasn’t clear.

At that, Erik finally does turn around, scrubbing a hand across his face before looking up with the most extraordinarily tired eyes that Charles has ever seen.

“Everyone always said you were a mind reader,” Erik mutters, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I’m starting to think that they’re right.”

“Nonsense, love, I’m just unusually good at reading _you_ ,” Charles says briskly. “I’ve had lots of practice. Now, come sit and tell me what’s going on.” He draws his legs up and Erik slumps onto the end of the couch with a reluctant sigh.

“You know that Peter Parker kid?” Erik asks him abruptly, crossing his legs at the ankle and jouncing his foot up and down nervously. “Skinny smartass who works the register at the market downtown?”

Blinking slowly, Charles nods, not quite sure whether his head is spinning because of the whiplash-worthy shift in the conversation or because, well, his head is actually spinning.

“So I’m trying to pay for the groceries,” Erik continues, glaring down at his knee like it’s done him a grave personal injury, “And this fucking smart aleck of a high school kid, he fucking looks up at me through those stupid-ass glasses, and he goes—he goes, ‘Hey Mister Lehnsherr, whatcha gonna do if the paper shuts down?’” He runs an agitated hand through his hair and shoots Charles an anguished glance.

“And I couldn’t—I couldn’t fucking tell him a thing, Charles. I just stood there and stared at him like a fucking idiot, because I realized that I have _no fucking clue_ what I’m going to do if the paper closes-”

“The paper’s not going to close,” Charles says quickly, trying to keep his voice calm despite the thrill of horror shooting down his spine. _The paper can’t close._

“But we can’t _think_ like that, Charles!” Erik throws his hands up in the air. “We can’t—I mean, obviously we’re going to do our best to keep the paper going, of course we are, but we can’t—we can’t just _assume_ —we’ve got to plan for every eventuality, you know?”

“Right,” Charles says faintly, trying to ignore the feeling that his heart is sinking inexorably towards his liver. “That’s perfectly reasonable, of course. We should—we should plan. Of course we should.”

“So let’s plan.” Erik folds his arms, meets Charles’ eyes, and asks the dreaded question: “What are we going to do if the paper closes down?”

There’s a long, long silence, during which Charles is pretty sure he can hear his heart making awkward small talk with his intestines. Erik’s staring at him, and he’s staring back, and the same uncomfortable truth is settling into both their minds: they have no fucking clue.

“Would we…stay here?” Charles asks tentatively, even though he already knows the answer.

“I mean…” Erik shrugs. “What else is there for us to do? Everyone in this town is either a cop or a criminal, and I don’t think we’d be very good at either.”

“I don’t know, I think we could do a pretty excellent good cop-bad cop routine.” Charles tries to laugh, but it just comes out sort of broken and forced.

Erik shoots him a concerned look and rests a hand on his thigh. “We could talk about this later. If you’re, you know, too tired, you’ve had a very long-”

“No,” Charles says firmly, resettling himself on his pillows and doing his best to pull himself together. “Let’s get this over with now.”

“O-kay,” Erik says dubiously. “Well, if there’s nothing to keep us here…”

“I mean-” Charles begins, thinking of Moira and Scott and Emma and Azazel and even Logan, Christ, and the crazy, hapless interns that he went and dragged into this stupid bloody business, the poor babies—but he derails that train of thought, he has to if he wants to keep from crying, because if the paper’s gone then they’re all on their own, the whole lot of them, the entire ridiculous, maddening, brilliant family that he’s lived and breathed with for all these years—

“Charles?”

Charles looks up to see Erik giving him that same concerned look, his hand closing protectively over his thigh.

“We could go to New York,” he volunteers, a mite tremulously, trying to shut down the part of his brain that’s ordering him to bury his face in Erik’s shoulder and start sobbing. “I’ve got a little saved, you know, enough for a pair of plane tickets and maybe a month’s rent in Queens. My sister’s some sort of publishing consultant, she could probably help us find work.”

“Where, Charles?” Erik sighs, and Charles swallows hard because, as usual, Erik’s right. “I mean, have you seen the state of the business lately? Papers closing left and right, being gobbled up by huge publishers and shat back out as soft-core celebrity porn posing as tabloids. The ones that survived are all going digital, and those can be run by six interns and a half-retarded web designer, and the few great old papers still in print sure as hell aren’t hiring.”

“There are magazines,” Charles tries, even though he knows it’s a lost cause.

“Right, because I’d do really well writing cocksucking stories about some stupid designer’s fucking fall collection,” Erik spits. “That’s not real journalism, Charles, and you know it.”

“‘Real’ journalists are a dying breed, Erik,” Charles sighs. “You can’t just go stomping about waving the sanctity of journalism around like some stupid bloody flag and expect the world to fall at your feet. The industry’s changing, love, and we’re becoming obsolete.”

“I know,” Erik groans, dropping his head into his hands. “Believe me, I know. I just…seriously, Charles, what the fuck are we going to do?”

“We’ll think of something,” Charles says gently, trying to sound as confident as he isn’t. “Besides,” he adds, clearing his throat loudly, “What does any of this even matter? We’re going to save the paper.”

“Whatever you say, Charles,” Erik says heavily, getting to his feet like he’s carrying a backpack stuffed with fourteen boulders and Sheriff Thor. “I’m going to check on dinner.”

“We will,” Charles insists, even though he’s almost certain that Erik’s not listening anymore. “The paper’s not going to close.”

-

“Shit,” Charles says, six days later. “The paper’s going to close.”

“We must have missed something,” Erik grits through his teeth for the fifteenth time tonight, leaning across his desk towards Charles. “Did you call-”

“ _Yes_ , Erik, I’m quite certain that I already have,” Charles snaps, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose because it’s nearly nine o’clock, they’ve been locked inside Erik’s office for at least three hours, and the fluorescent lights are starting to give him a migraine.

“Just—double check?” Erik asks, and it’s so pitiful that Charles is startled into opening his eyes. “Please?”

“Erik,” Charles sighs, rubbing fretfully at one temple as he looks down at the list in front of him. No matter how many times he checks or how hard he wishes, the tattered scrap of printer paper stubbornly refuses to reveal a new name that hasn’t been crossed out. As it turns out, the reminder that Erik scribbled in all caps at the top of the page—“ _NO CRIMINALS_ ”—eliminates an extraordinarily large chunk of Amistad’s upper class. And as for the few remainders, well…

“I still don’t understand why they all turned us down,” Erik says, and Christ, he really is sounding like a broken record because Charles is pretty sure that he’s heard that one at least eighteen times today.

“We’ve done our job too well,” Charles says mournfully, doodling a despondent squiggle in the margin of his list. “We’ve pissed off every rich person in town.”

“Still no word from the other papers?”

“Nothing.” Charles checks his Blackberry again, just in case he’s wrong. He’s not.

“Are you _sure_ you couldn’t have forgotten-”

“Erik,” Charles says flatly, “I wrote every major newspaper still in publication in the United States. I wrote every midsize local publication from Los Angeles to Dallas, every confederation of small local papers, every publishing group, and every media mogul and rich idiot who has ever expressed even the vaguest interest in publishing. God help me, I even wrote Rupert Murdoch, and if that’s not a harbinger of the apocalypse then I don’t know what is.”

“So basically,” Erik frowns, “What you’re saying is that no one cares.”

“Erik, that’s not-”

“No, that’s definitely what this means.” Erik shoves back his chair, gets abruptly to his feet, and starts to pace. “We’ve published our last edition, the doors are closing tomorrow, and _nobody gives a fuck_.”

“Surely that can’t be true,” Charles says desperately, even though he’s very much afraid that it is. “Surely there’s someone…I mean, lots of people read…ordinary people in, in town, I don’t know-”

“Charles,” Erik snaps, “You’re being delusional. No one responded to those ads we ran. Half the rich fucks we called didn’t even pick up the goddamn phone. The interns drove all over fucking town today trying to collect donations-”

“Oh, right, how did that go?” Charles asks brightly, because nothing helps fight off an inexorable sense of doom like asking questions in an unnaturally perky voice.

“They got _sixteen dollars_ ,” Erik spits, “And then got _mugged_ for that, their notebooks, and their tape recorders.”

“Christ,” Charles groans, burying his face in his hands. There’s a moment of silence, and he feels…strangely calm, actually, leaving aside the dull but persistent ache in his chest cavity that’s been growing steadily all day. But it’s strange, it really is, because these are their last hours, the helpless death spasms of the beautiful monster he’s spent the last three years—nearly one seventh of his _life_ , Jesus—raising and nurturing and beating his bloody brains out for, and he should probably be screaming, panicking, sobbing, or having a fairly large personal crisis at the very least, but instead he’s just—breathing. It occurs to him, sickeningly, that somewhere deep down he knew this would happen, from the very moment that he and Erik saw Tony Stark sitting in that cell—and god, it seems like a thousand years ago now, because so many things, _everything_ has changed since then. The quiet, lonely future that he’d envisioned for himself, his neat little lifetime of editing bad copy, eating greasy Chinese food, and gradually growing older in a small, cluttered house full of potted plants and maybe a cat or two—it’s gone now, shattered, pulled out from under him, leaving him suspended, uncertain, in an unknowable, indeterminate void.

He takes a deep breath and glances up at Erik. Well, maybe not _quite_ a void.

“Darling,” he says softly, and Erik looks up from the grimy carpet beneath his feet like Charles’ voice is a lifeboat in an empty ocean.

Charles gets slowly, steadily to his feet. “Let’s go home.”

Erik’s eyebrows furrow, and he opens his mouth to protest, but Charles leans up and stems the rising tide with a gentle, firm kiss.

“We’ll come in tomorrow,” he takes both of Erik’s hands in his and keeps his eyes fixed on them, not meeting Erik’s gaze, “And pack everything up. Take the files down to the courthouse, get the furniture and things ready for auction-”

“Charles,” Erik says pitifully, and Charles feels his throat start to close up because in Erik’s voice he can hear the void, and fear of the void, and fear of purposelessness, and fear of letting everyone down, and—

“There’s nothing else we can do,” Charles murmurs, squeezing Erik’s hands as tightly as his shaking fingers can manage. “Let’s just go home.”

Erik takes a deep breath, and then another, and then his grip on Charles’ hands loosens and the deep, deep furrows in his forehead vanish and his mouth goes from a hard, tight line of fear to a slack downward curve of resignation.

“Fine,” he whispers, eyes hooded and not meeting Charles’. “Let’s—yeah, let’s just—let’s just go home.” Unspoken are the words, _I don’t want to be here anymore_ , but Charles hears them loud and clear—mostly because he’s thinking the exact same thing.

-

The newsroom outside is dim, lit only by a handful of glowing computer screens and the bright, fluorescent light spilling out of the conference room. Erik and Charles exchange perplexed glances—everyone else should be long gone by now—and cross the room to peer through the open door. Inside the conference room, clustered around the battered table where they’ve planned so many issues, are—well it’s really sort of ridiculous, actually, because Charles could _swear_ he told everyone to go home around six, and yet there’s Scott and Logan and Moira and Azazel and Sean and Janos and the interns and Emma and his _entire fucking staff_ , actually, huddled around this dinky little table like they’re hatching some kind of plot.

“What on-” he begins, but Sean gets hurriedly to his feet and cuts him off.

“We think we’ve figured it out, boss,” he says cheerily, but there’s a desperate edge to his smile and a can of Monster in his hand and whatever’s coming next, it’s probably not going to be good.

“How to save the paper,” Alex chimes in helpfully. “We were thinking we should, like, kidnap a super rich person’s dog-”

“Shut the _fuck_ up, shitshow, that’s not what we decided,” Scott snaps, giving his brother the customary smack upside the head, and oh, god, Charles could almost cry because what on _earth_ is he going to do without these people in his life?

“To be fair, we never actually decided on anything,” Moira points out diplomatically, but everyone else ignores her.

“Scott and I are in favor of busting Tony Stark out of jail,” Logan announces, to which Scott instantly retorts, “No we are _not_ , I never said-”

“We could just auction off all the furniture,” Armando suggests. “That’s what I think we should do. It’d give us a little more time-”

“Or maybe cats,” Alex continues loudly. “You know how some people get about their cats, I bet we could make a whole stack of cash off the ransom-”

“We could have a bake sale,” Emma says brightly.

“-I mean, we wouldn’t have, like, chairs and stuff, but at least we could keep the lights on, y’know?”

“The jail’s not too well guarded—I mean, there’s Thor, but if we got him drunk enough he _probably_ wouldn’t notice if we pulled Stark out through the window-”

“There’s always meth…” Janos says quietly, and that’s about when Charles decides that enough is enough.

“Look, I know you’re all very attached to this paper,” he begins, but he can barely even hear himself over Alex shouting at Armando and Logan shouting at Scott and Scott shouting at pretty much everyone else.

“HEY!” Erik shouts over all of them. “ALL OF YOU SHUT THE _FUCK_ UP AND LISTEN TO CHARLES!” As usual, that does the trick: everyone in the room shuts the fuck up and stares, round-eyed, at Charles.

“Look,” Charles says again, and shit, his stomach is doing that clenching-up thing again because they’re all _looking_ at him like he’s got the answers, like he’ll know what to do, like they’re a bunch of frightened children and he’s come to save the day.

“Look, I appreciate you trying—trying to fix things,” he says helplessly, his hands clasped in front of him and shifting over and under one another nervously. “It’s sweet, it really is, and you’re all brilliant and fantastic, but-” he shrugs, swallows hard, and pushes on, “Really, there’s nothing left for us to do. We’ve worked our hardest and tried our best, but there are just some things that we can’t control. And so I think it’s best if we—if we go out with dignity, you know? Not scrabbling and struggling and degrading ourselves just to stay afloat for a few more days. We’ve fought our fight and we’ve lost. And no, it’s not fair, and no, we don’t deserve any of what’s happened, but we’ve got to accept that it has happened and that nothing we do can change that.

“Besides,” he adds, trying to summon a semblance of a smile despite the fact that his entire staff has suddenly turned into a litter of kicked puppies, “Who’s saying that this is permanent? We may have to shut down for a little while, reorganize, get a few things figured out, but…well, maybe something will turn up. It may just take a little time. But whatever happens, whether we come back from this or not, I just think—well, I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: we were—no, we _are_ the best damn paper in America, and even if we never put out another edition you lot will always be my family.

“So,” he says briskly, taking a deep breath and trying to push back the tears he can feel building at the back of his throat, “I want you all to _go home_ , get a good night’s sleep, and, ah…well, come in around…noon, let’s say, and we’ll start packing things up.”

“Charles…” Moira says softly, but Charles shakes his head, all too aware of how his lower lip is wobbling like he’s an unhappy child.

“Home,” he says firmly. “Get some sleep. All of you.”

“You too,” Armando says meekly, and he and Alex exchange looks so lost that Charles can feel his heart crack in two.

“I’ll lock up,” Moira says, getting slowly to her feet. “You go.”

“Good night, everyone,” Erik says brusquely. “We’ll see you in the morning.”

He puts his hand on Charles’ back, palm flat between his shoulder blades, and guides him gently away from the brilliantly-lit doorway and out into the freezing desert night.

-

The drive home is strange and wordless, the still air inside Charles’ Subaru populated only by the insistent drone of some dreadfully boring NPR program that even Erik, the master of radio ADD, cannot bring himself to change. The apartment is cold and dark, and Charles shivers and turns up the thermostat while Erik peers gloomily into the refrigerator. Charles ambles over, leans heavily against Erik’s side, and assesses the barren, fluorescent cave of their fridge.

“Takeout?” he suggests, sliding one hand into Erik’s back pocket.

“Yep.” Erik wraps one arm around Charles’ shoulders and uses his free hand to pull his phone out of his jacket pocket. “Dumplings, lo mein, orange beef?”

“As always,” Charles sighs. “I can’t wait-” He breaks off, not quite believing what he was just about to say: _I can’t wait to go somewhere with actual Chinese food._

“Hmm?” Erik’s looking down at him curiously, phone to his ear and one eyebrow raised.

“Nothing,” Charles mutters, sliding out of Erik’s grasp and pulling open the silverware drawer. “I’ll make us trays.”

Dinner, once it arrives, is a surprisingly normal affair; they eat in front of the television, half-watching a History Channel program about the fall of the Roman Empire. Charles finishes his food, washes the dishes, and returns to find Erik half-dozing on the couch, the television long moved on to some reality show about sad, fat antiques dealers.

And he can’t help but pause, hands braced on the back of the couch and eyes skating unseeingly over the TV screen, because this is all so unsettlingly…well, normal. He’s not entirely sure what, exactly, he was expecting: an implosion of the sun, perhaps, or a building-shattering earthquake, or at the very least some appropriately dramatic opera music in the background. But this just feels like any other quiet, sleepy night after any other long, exhausting day in the usual long, exhausting sequence of their lives.

Well, that’s not quite true; this mostly feels like any other night, but it also feels a hell of a lot like getting laid off. It was over three years ago now, but he still feels the weight of that crumpled pink slip of paper in his pocket like it was yesterday. He was so young then, barely out of school, so keen and hardworking and naïve, _god_ was he naïve. How else could he have possibly thought that he’d survive the times, that the economic downturn and the gradual collapse of the print industry would somehow pass him by?

And now he’s…well, much the same, actually, if a little bit wiser about the realities of this preposterous business that he’s in. He’s older, too—not much, of course, but enough that he can see his thirtieth birthday looming on the horizon, and all of a sudden he’s struck by a single potent, gut-wrenching thought: _I don’t want to be unemployed when I’m thirty_.

Because it was one thing to have everything pulled out from under him when he was twenty-five, when he still had a sharp memory of the abyss that stretched before him after high school, and again after college, and still again after grad school. He was barely an adult then, barely had any thoughts about the shape he wanted his life to take, and so the total freedom of unemployment was sort of liberating, in the most terrifying way possible. He could go anywhere, do anything, work for anyone, because hey, he was young and energetic and still so very adaptable.

What a difference three years have made. He’s been comfortable here, found a routine and a sort of home despite the strangeness of this little desert town. He’s got an apartment, a car, a bit of money in the bank and a surprisingly decent credit score, friends, employees, and even a boyfriend, for god’s sake. He’s made plans, put down roots, changed the address on all his magazine subscriptions and gotten a new driver’s license. And somehow, while he was busy editing stories and watering his plants and trying his hardest to keep his reporters from getting shot, a future started to form at the back of his head. Without entirely realizing it, he’s started to want things: a house of his own, a group of friends, a steady job, a decent car and even, he realizes with another flip of his stomach, a family.

And now everything is gone. Without that job, there’s no house, no car, no pension, no friends. All he’s got at the moment is two more weeks in this apartment, a handful of bills waiting to be paid, a few thousand dollars of savings, and a boyfriend snoring on the couch.

He sighs, scrubbing his hands up and down his face. It’s been a long day, and he is far too tired for this kind of existential crisis. There’s nothing he can do tonight about his job, his rent, his car payments, or the future of his existence. At the moment, all that matters is that he’s got a boyfriend in front of him, a big, soft bed in the next room, and exhaustion settling so deeply into his bones that it feels like it’s been living there since the day he was born.

“Erik,” he says softly, reaching over the back of the couch to jostle his shoulder carefully. “Darling, come to bed.”

“Hmm?” Erik says sleepily, jerking half-awake and twisting around to squint up at Charles. “Whassa?”

“Bed,” Charles repeats, not quite able to stifle a smile because existential crises be damned, sleepy Erik is the best Erik.

“Right,” sleepy Erik mutters, heaving himself to his feet. “That’s the best idea I’ve heard all day.”

-

They barely manage to undress before they crash into bed, Charles flicking out the lamp before flopping unceremoniously down beside Erik. In the darkness, he curls into his boyfriend’s side, drawing the sheet up over the both of them as he buries his face in the gloriously warm skin of Erik’s shoulder. Erik sighs, three-quarters asleep already, and presses his nose against the top of Charles’ head. As warm breath sinks into his hair, Charles feels all the tension seep out of his muscles, because this is, in a word, perfect.

It’s never been quite like this before, so quiet and sleepy and comforting. They’ve had sex every night this week, fucking out their frustrations in a whirlwind of crushing kisses and bruising bites. Afterwards, both of them always pass out in a tangle of limbs and sweat, too worn out to brood about the inevitable collapse of their lives. But tonight, it’s less of a sudden dunk beneath the black waters of sleep and more a gentle slide under the surface, like slipping slowly into a warm bath. He’s too sleepy to fret about his future, too comfortable to even remember that a world exists outside this bed, and too exhausted to do anything but sleep.


	14. Chapter 14

Charles wakes up with a jolt, his heart leaping into his throat as his eyes fly open and catch sight of the strands of sunlight spilling through the blinds. He sits bolt upright, casting about his for his stupid bloody alarm clock that never works because what _fucking_ time is it, they’re going to be late for—

And that’s when he remembers: they’re not going to be late for work, because there’s no work to be late for. His heart takes a dizzying dive from his throat to the pit of his stomach. When he finally locates his alarm clock (sitting craftily in the same exact place that it always does), it reads 8:24. With a sigh, he slumps back down beside the motionless Erik; they’ve got a few more hours before they need to go in and start boxing everything up, and he’d rather sleep than cry. Wrapping an arm around Erik’s waist, he curls up and lets his boyfriend’s deep, steady breaths lull him back to sleep.

-

The second time that Charles wakes up, the phone is ringing. This doesn’t entirely register for a moment or two; he barely even hears the obnoxious shriek of the handset until Erik groans, rolls over, and picks it up.

“’lo?” he grunts, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. And Charles is barely even awake, but he distinctly recognizes the faint, tinny voice on the other end that cries, “Oooh, who’s _this_?”

“Uh,” Erik says, scratching perplexedly at his unshaven chin as Charles heaves a deep, deep sigh and pushes himself up onto his elbows.

“Give it here,” he says heavily, and Erik drops the phone obligingly into his outstretched hand. “It’s my sister.”

“Charles!” Charles winces and holds the phone a little ways from his ear because it is _way_ too early for him to be anything near capable of dealing with Raven. “Who _was_ that?”

“His name is Erik,” Charles begins, sitting all the way up, “And he is _none_ of your business.”

“Fine,” Raven sniffs, and he can just hear her disappointment at not being able to poke her nose into yet another one of his relationships. “Then I won’t ask. Though,” she adds, because they have fought a lifelong war for the last word, “He did have a _pret-ty_ sexy voice. I’m proud.”

“Raven,” Charles sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose and trying to remember how to take deep, deep breaths, “Why are you calling me?”

There’s a long pause, during which Charles steels himself for more of the usual snark. What comes next, however, is not even remotely like what he was expecting.

“Mom’s dead.”

He sits back against the headboard and lets out a long, long breath.

“The funeral’s next week,” Raven goes on, and Christ, she almost sounds nervous. “On, uh, Wednesday, I think.”

Charles is barely listening at this point, his mind entirely overtaken by a single thought: _Of course_. Of _course_ this would happen now, of _course_ his mother would choose the exact goddamn day that he loses his job to die. It’s an awful thought, obviously, but they never exactly had a warm and fuzzy relationship, and he can’t help but think that the drunken old bitch pulled this on him on purpose.

“It would be, you know, good if you came,” Raven’s saying, and that snaps Charles back to reality with a vengeance.

“No,” he says flatly. “Kurt’s going to be there. Absolutely not.”

There’s another long silence, and he almost starts to regret saying it—evil, entitled bastard that he is, the man is still Raven’s father—until Raven sighs, “See, Charles, this is why you should call home every once in a while.”

“I hate to break it to you, but I can’t exactly imagine that my calls would be welcome,” Charles snaps, because they’ve _had_ this argument before and he really wishes that Raven would join the reality-based community every once in a while. “I assumed that a total communications shutdown kind of went with the whole disownment thing-”

“They’re divorced, Charles,” Raven cuts him off impatiently, and his breath sticks a little in his throat because _oh_. “Finalized everything a couple months ago. It was ugly, messy—well what else would you expect from them? Anyway, he’s in Florida now with a cocktail waitress from Toledo, and I can’t imagine that he’ll be coming anywhere near her casket.”

“Christ,” Charles mutters, rubbing a hand across his forehead. Lying beside him, Erik looks up at him curiously, but he can’t bring himself to meet his eyes. “What-” He breaks off, shocked to find that his voice is shaking. He clears his throat and tries again: “What was it? That—that did it?”

“Liver,” Raven says dully, and Charles nods without an ounce of surprise.

“Right, so-” He uses his free hand to scrabble through the junk on his bedside table in search of pen and paper. “Sorry, when are the services? Next Wednesday, was it?”

“Yeah. Charles, there’s-” Raven pauses, and that worrying uncertainty is back in her voice. “There’s something else.”

“Yeah?” Charles says absently, scribbling a note on a crumpled receipt and trying to ignore Erik’s increasingly troubled frown.

“She changed her will,” Raven says hesitantly, and Charles’ pen grinds to a halt.

“She what?”

“Right before she died. Had some kind of…deathbed remorse, I dunno. Said she regretted what she’d done to you. Though, personally,” -she lets out a strange, forced-sounding laugh- “I think she just finally had to face up to the fact that she was leaving all the money to the least responsible child.”

“What are you saying?” Charles asks slowly, setting down his pen with a definite click.

“She left you—well, pretty much everything.” Raven chuckles with disbelief. “I mean, I’ve still got my trust fund, don’t worry about me, but you’ve got—uh, the house, the investment portfolio, the bank accounts, even the Swiss one, plus the land in Texas and the life insurance from—well, both of them, now.”

“Oh, my god,” Charles breathes, settling back against the headboard because _Christ_ , he feels like he’s about to faint.

“Kurt took the yacht, though,” Raven chatters on, even though Charles has zoned out again. “In the divorce. The house in Colorado, too, and I think I got the cabin in Vermont—god knows what I’m going to do with it, but I guess it’s sort of nice to have-”

“Raven,” Charles says faintly, staring up at the ceiling overhead and praying that it doesn’t start spinning, “It was very nice to hear from you, but I’m afraid I’ve got to go.”

“Oh.” She sounds faintly disappointed, and Charles feels a pang of guilt for his complete and utter absence from the past four years of his baby sister’s life. “You’re—you’re coming to the funeral, though?”

“I’ll do my best,” Charles promises, rolling out of bed and casting around the half-lit room for his trousers. “I’ll look for tickets tonight.”

“Think you can get the time off from work?” she asks, and Charles feels a slow smile spread like molasses across his face.

“Yeah,” he manages, stifling a strange, hysterical laugh that he doesn’t entirely understand. “Yeah, I think I can.” With that, he hangs up.

“What the hell-” Erik begins as Charles tosses the handset haphazardly onto the bed and crosses the room to rifle impatiently through his dresser drawers.

“Get dressed, darling,” Charles interrupts, yanking on a pair of boxers before stepping clumsily into a crumpled pair of khakis on the floor.

“Charles,” Erik frowns, sitting up, “What did-”

“What time is it?” Charles asks absently, pulling the trousers impatiently up his legs. “Ten of eleven? Good, we can get to the office before they start packing things up.”

“Charles,” Erik says again, looking, if possible, even more concerned, “What are you _talking_ about?”

“I think these are yours, love,” Charles says distractedly after spending a few moments staring blankly at the extra six inches of trouser leg pooled around his ankles. He steps out of the khakis and tosses them at Erik, who catches them in one hand and uses the other to grab Charles by the wrist and pull him back towards the bed.

“Charles,” Erik says flatly, “Would you just tell me what the _hell_ is going on?”

They lock eyes for a few moments, during which Charles feels that mad, mad grin crawling across his face again. He feels…strange, fizzy, impulsive, every nerve crackling with bizarre, uncontrollable energy.

“Darling,” he grins, suddenly aware of the feeling that his head is floating somewhere near the ceiling, “We’re going to save the paper.” He reaches down, takes Erik’s jaw in both hands, and kisses his open, unresisting mouth.

“Wh-what?” Erik splutters, pulling away. “What are you _talking_ about, Charles, what is going _on_?”

“My mother’s dead,” Charles blurts out. He starts to laugh this crazy, hysterical laugh that bubbles unstoppably up out of his throat and makes his knees go wobbly and weak. He sits down with a thump on the edge of the bed, still laughing uncontrollably, and buries his face in his hands. It’s only then that he feels the wetness on his cheeks and becomes calmly, distantly aware that he’s probably crying.

“Jesus, Charles,” Erik murmurs, and then there are warm arms enfolding him and drawing him close to a solid, warm chest. As Erik’s fingers card gently through his hair, Charles buries his face in Erik’s shoulder and begins to cry in earnest, great, wracking sobs that shudder through his entire body and wring his lungs out like dishrags.

And he’s sort of surprised, really. Of course, this isn’t exactly the sort of thing he thinks about very often, but still. If, for some bizarre reason, anyone had asked him how he’d react to his mother’s death, he certainly wouldn’t have said this. She was his mother, of course, but she was also a drunk and a homophobe and a money-grubbing cow and a spectacularly shitty mother in general, from the day he was born until the day she died. Because sure, she’s left him more money than he could ever dream of knowing what to do with, but…well, she threw a bunch of money at him and expected that to fix things, didn’t she? It’s sort of what she’s always done, actually: tried to stuff money into a love-shaped hole. Not that he’s complaining, not that he has any right at all to complain, but…well, his own mother didn’t speak to him for eight years, for Christ’s sake. He certainly won’t turn away the money, but a phone call might have been nice.

“Shhh,” Erik’s whispering, rubbing slow circles into Charles’ back as he struggles to get his sobbing under control. “It’s all right.”

“The—the old bitch,” Charles mumbles thickly, hiccoughing into Erik’s shoulder. “Sh-she left me a f-f-fucking fortune.”

“She what?” Erik draws back to look Charles in his red, watery eyes.

“Pretty muh-much everything,” Charles gulps, wiping the back of his wrist across both cheeks. “Certainly enough to—to keep the paper afloat for a decade or two.” He shoots for a damp, wobbly smile and manages not to burst into tears with relief.

“Holy Christ,” Erik breathes after a moment’s silence. “That’s amazing—I mean, shit, not that your mom died, that’s—that’s the opposite of amazing, Jesus, what am I saying-”

Charles cuts him off with another kiss, this one far less sloppy and manic and much more…well, normal, loving, a gentle promise without words. After a second of shock, Erik kisses back, his tongue carefully parting Charles’ lips before dipping deeply into his mouth. With a contented sigh, Charles slings a leg across Erik’s hips and settles onto his lap, clasping his hands at the back of his neck. Erik plants his hands on both sides of Charles’ waist and leans up for another kiss, his tongue pressing luxuriously into Charles’ waiting mouth. Between kisses, they both breathe gentle sighs of happiness; at last, at last, everything feels right.

A few minutes later, just as things are starting to move from slow and romantic to something a little bit more urgent, they’re interrupted by the insistent buzz of Charles’ Blackberry.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Erik grumbles as Charles rolls off him and snatches the offending device off his bedside table. “Who the hell is emailing you-”

“Oh my god,” Charles says softly, an awestruck smile spreading across his face as he pulls up his email. “Oh my _god_.”

“What?” Erik shifts across the bed to peer over Charles’ shoulder.

“Loki and Tony Stark have busted out,” Charles says slowly, scrolling through the message. “They found Thor fast asleep in the cells and stinking of whiskey, Clint tied to the toilet with shoelaces and duct tape, and the squad car vanished. Bucky says he thinks they’re headed for the border.”

“Fantastic,” Erik mutters, pressing a kiss to the side of Charles’ neck. “I can’t think of a pair of assholes who deserve each other more.”

“Erik, don’t,” Charles protests, squirming away from the gentle bite Erik’s trying to deliver to the soft skin just under his ear. “This is front-page stuff right here, we’ve got to get going-”

“Oh come _on_ ,” Erik groans as Charles gets to his feet.

“Don’t give me that look,” Charles chuckles, folding his arms and smiling back at Erik’s exasperated pout. “You’re the one who’s always going on about the sanctity of the news. Doesn’t that take precedence, darling?”

“The news can wait,” Erik says firmly, grabbing Charles by the wrist and tugging him back into bed. Laughing, Charles lets himself tumble into Erik’s arms, his Blackberry lying forgotten on his bedside table. And as Erik presses a deep, deep kiss to Charles’ smiling lips, Charles can’t help but agree with him: the news _can_ wait—for a little while, at least.

_Fin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all, folks! (Except, of course, for the epilogue that's on its way.) Hope you've enjoyed, leave me your thoughts. <3


	15. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, have a little New Year's gift from me to all of you: at long last, the epilogue! I hope you don't mind the lateness or the fluffiness (it's an epilogue, for god's sake; they're make for fluff). Thank you all for sticking with me throughout this long, crazy ride. I've adored reading your comments, and I truly hope that you've enjoyed my ridiculous little story. <3

“Dear god, I think I’m going to faint,” Charles mutters, passing a hand over his brow. Despite the chill in the air and the brisk winter wind blowing out of the north, it’s damp and clammy.

“You’ve said that at least four times since we left the house,” Erik points out, pushing the driver’s side door shut behind him and coming to stand in the parking lot beside Charles.

“But this time I really think I mean it,” Charles says miserably, staring up at the office building ahead of him with the despondent gaze of a condemned man. The ramshackle brick building, normally so endearingly shabby and familiar, looms overhead like the hangman’s scaffold.

“You’re being ridiculous,” Erik says firmly, putting a gentle hand between Charles’ shoulder blades and guiding him slowly towards the front door. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Charles says weakly as they step out of the winter wind and into the lobby. Even to his own ears, his voice sounds deeply unconvinced.

Erik heaves a deep sigh, presses the elevator call button, and turns to face Charles.

“Look. You’ve made this into a much bigger deal than it needs to be. Just _relax_ , okay?”

“I’m having some issues with that, darling.” The elevator doors ding open, and Charles steps inside and steadies himself against one wall. “Oh, dear, I think my knees are going to give out.”

“For heaven’s sake.” Erik rolls his eyes and presses the fourth-floor button. The elevator doors slide shut with another cheerful ding of impending doom.

“Just take some deep breaths,” Erik advises him, putting a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Don’t you trust them?”

“Of course I _trust_ them,” Charles says wearily. “They’re our staff, aren’t they? I just—I don’t know, this is all so—we’ve never done anything like this, god _knows_ how it’s going to go.”

“Fine,” Erik says decidedly. “It’s going to go fine.”

Before Charles can voice his objections to that particular assumption, the elevators ding open once more, and they step out to meet their doom.

“Charles?” He looks around to see Moira staring up from her desk in surprise. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be getting to the airport?”

“I—we just wanted to come in and, you know, say goodbye,” Charles says helplessly, trying to ignore the long-suffering look that Erik is shooting in his direction. “Make sure everything’s in order, see if there are any last-minute-”

“Fucking Christ, Charles,” Logan groans, meandering past with a cup of coffee in one meaty hand. “I think we can handle things for a week, Jesus.”

“See?” Erik can’t quite mask his grin of triumph. “I _told_ you that they could take care of themselves!”

“Damn straight,” Logan nods, leaning back on Moira’s desk and taking a sip of his coffee.

At that moment, a desk chair—and Charles is very, _very_ sure that it’s _his_ chair, his beautiful, brand-new desk chair that he bought approximately fifteen minutes after saving the paper—shoots past them at a remarkable speed considering the three shrieking interns piled on top of it. It careens through the newsroom, narrowly managing to avoid running over an extremely perplexed Hank, and shoots through the open door to the photo lab. Within moments, a shout of horror, an enormous crash, and an extraordinarily long stream of Russian curse words erupt from within.

“Oh, dear lord,” Charles murmurs, just as Erik buries his face in his hands and Logan nearly chokes on his mouthful of coffee.

“To be fair,” Moira pipes up after a long pause punctuated only by the muffled sounds of blows and the occasional bit of Slavic profanity, “That would have happened whether you were here or not.”

“I must point out, however,” Charles says faintly, watching in horror as his empty chair wobbles drunkenly back out of the photo lab, “That it does not exactly inspire confidence that you will all survive our vacation intact.”

“I’m going to _kill_ them,” Erik growls, rolling up his sleeves and glowering in the unfortunate interns’ direction with all the rage of a man who has just had his long-awaited vacation ruined. But as he takes a step down the hallway, Logan stops him with another large, meaty hand.

“Don’t worry, boss,” he says with eerie calm, setting his coffee cup down on Moira’s desk. “I’ll take care of this.”

“Well then,” Moira says, relieved, as Logan strides off down the length of the newsroom with vengeance in his eyes. “I think that’s settled, don’t you?”

“Poor darlings,” Charles sighs. “They really don’t deserve Logan’s wrath on top of a beating from Azazel.”

“I’ll check on them afterwards,” Moira promises with a smile. “Bandage their wounds, hold frozen peas on their bruises, feed them hot soup—everything you’d do if you were here.”

“Bless you, Moira,” Erik says earnestly. “If it weren’t for you, I don’t think he would have ever agreed to this.”

“It’s just…a week feels a bit long, don’t you think?” Charles says for at least the six thousandth time, fidgeting anxiously. “I mean, maybe we should have tried a few days, just to start-”

“C’mon, man, don’t you trust us?” Sean inquires, poking his good-natured freckle face out of the tech room. “It’s not like we’re gonna burn the place down while you’re gone.”

“He’s right, you know,” Moira agrees. “Scott and Hank will edit, Logan and Azazel will keep everyone on task-” she shoots a nervous look towards the suddenly silent photo lab, “-and I will do my best to keep grievous bodily injury to a minimum. What more could you want?”

“Face it, Charles, that’s basically all we do,” Erik points out with a smile. “They’re going to be _fine_.”

“Listen to your boyfriend, Charles,” Moira says cheerfully, getting to her feet. “Let your baby go out on its own for a little while. I promise that the building will still be standing when you return.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” she adds, stepping out from behind her desk, “I think I’m going to go check on the interns. Merry Christmas, enjoy your trip, eat lots of wonderful things, take lots of pictures, and _don’t worry_.”

With that, she hurries off to the photo lab, and Charles has half a mind to follow her—because after a double whammy of rage from Azazel _and_ Logan, god only knows what kind of shape those poor children are in—but Erik takes his hand and squeezes it, gently but firmly.

“She’s right,” he says softly, and when Erik speaks in that gorgeous half-whispered rumble, Charles has no choice but to pay attention. “You need to let go. It’s just a week.”

“I know,” Charles sighs. “I just-”

“Hey, what the hell are you two doing here?” Scott demands, stepping out of the break room with a bag of frozen peas in each hand. “Aren’t you gonna miss your flight? You need to be there at least two hours early for international flights, you know. Security’s a fuckin’ nightmare during the holidays.”

“How right you are, Scott,” Erik says cheerily, tugging Charles back towards the elevator. “Say goodbye to the office, Charles.”

“Goodbye,” Charles says faintly, following Erik reluctantly into the elevator. He turns and takes a last, long look at the newsroom: the cubicles hung with fairy lights and tinsel; the well-meaning but preposterous electric menorah glowing in the window of Erik’s office; Moira helping Angel and Armando limp out of the photo lab as Scott holds a bag of peas to Alex’s swollen jaw; Logan rubbing his knuckles and smiling frighteningly to himself as he returns to his cup of coffee; Janos trying to prevent an enraged Azazel from kicking Charles’ desk chair straight through the nearest wall; Emma, inexplicably, cutting paper snowflakes at her desk and taping them to the walls; Sean and Hank attempting for the thousandth time to make the Charlie Brown Christmas tree in the corner stand up straight—in short, the typical day of chaos and dysfunction in the chaotic, dysfunctional office that _he saved_.

Against all the odds, it’s a strangely comforting sight. And as the elevator doors ding shut, Charles finds, to his surprise, that the anxiety that’s been growing in the pit of his stomach all day has suddenly subsided and been replaced with oddly warm, fuzzy feeling.

“See?” Erik says quietly, putting his arm around Charles’ waist and drawing him close. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“It was dreadful,” Charles tells him frankly, leaning his head against his welcoming shoulder. “But I think I’ll survive.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Erik chuckles, kissing the top of his head.

“Besides,” Charles adds, rummaging in his jacket pockets, “Whenever separation anxiety hits, I’ve always got my Blackberry.”

“Uh,” Erik says after a brief pause. “You know it won’t work over there, right?”

Charles starts to take a deep breath to stave off the oncoming panic—only to discover, to his shock, that it’s not coming. There’s no terror rising at the back of his throat, no horrible falling feeling in the pit of his stomach. Instead, he just feels—well, sort of amused, actually.

“Somehow, I think you neglected to mention that when we were planning this trip,” he says softly, unable to keep a stupidly fond smile off his face as he tilts his head to look up at Erik. When he catches sight of his studiously innocent expression, he can’t help but laugh—and not the scary hysterical kind, either. The normal, happy, “my boyfriend is a sneaky, conniving git but I love him anyway” kind.

“It must have slipped my mind,” Erik says, doing a marvelous job of maintaining a straight face. “I’m afraid you’ll have to leave it at home.”

“ _Trés tragique_ ,” Charles smiles, slipping his arm around Erik’s waist as the elevator doors ding open.

“ _Sehr tragisch_ ,” Erik corrects him as they walk side-by-side out of the lobby and into the windswept parking lot. “Better start practicing your German now, _liebling_.”

“ _Liebling_ , I am looking forward to entire week of listening to your gorgeous _deutsch_ ,” Charles tells him, leaning close as the wind gusts icily through his denim jacket, “And not speaking a word of it myself.”

“I’m all too happy to be your translator, dearest.” Erik pulls him close, casting a dubious glance at his thin jacket. “You did pack something warmer than this, didn’t you? There’s going to be at least a foot of snow.”

“Of course.” Charles pulls his jacket closer about him as the wind howls even harder. “God, I can’t wait for snow.”

“Me neither,” Erik agrees fervently as he unlocks the car and they separate to climb inside. “You should see it, Charles,” he adds as they pull their doors shut in perfect unison. “The snow all over the countryside, the beautiful old houses in the village, the candles on the Christmas trees, and the lights coming on in the windows as the evening falls—god, it’s gorgeous. And there’s the Christmas market—the best gingerbread you’ve ever tasted, I swear—and there’s all kinds of plätzchen, and marzipan, and mulled wine, and then there’s the Christmas goose, of course-”

“No Hanukkah traditions, you extraordinarily observant Jew?” Charles says teasingly as Erik starts the car with a dreamy look in his eyes.

“Well, of course,” he huffs, pulling out of the parking lot. “I mean, I’ve got to give you a taste of the _goyische_ traditions, haven’t I? But there’s plenty of rugelach and babka to buy in the Jewish quarter—and tell you what, I’ll make you the best damn latkes you’ve ever tasted. Mother’s recipe.”

“It sounds divine.” Charles sighs happily, leaning back in his seat and closing his eyes. “Tell me about New Year’s.”

Beside him, Erik chuckles softly; they’ve gone through these plans a thousand times over, but they just get more delicious every time.

“Well, there are the _raketen_ , of course,” he begins, like a parent telling a child an oft-repeated bedtime story. “When the clock chimes midnight, the sky explodes with them—you’ll probably go a bit deaf, but it’s not too bad. Then there’s the _feuerzangenbowle_ —that’s the flaming punch, that’s pretty great—and of course there’s champagne, and beer—lots and lots of beer—and jelly donuts, and lucky New Year’s Day fish. My family used to go to a performance of _Die Fledermaus_ on New Year’s morning, but something tells me that we’ll be…otherwise occupied.”

“Something tells me that you’re right,” Charles chuckles, opening his eyes to shoot a mischievous look at his boyfriend. “What with that big feather bed and all those long, cold winter evenings…”

“And mornings,” Erik adds, a wicked smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as he keeps his eyes resolutely on the road ahead. “Got to ring in the new year somehow.”

“Quite right.” Charles smiles and spends a few moments watching the desert speed past outside his window, his mind full of visions of snowy woods and deep blue evenings and candlelit streets and all the beautiful old world pleasures of Erik’s childhood. After several minutes of silence, he can’t help but say, “I’m so glad that we’re doing this.”

Erik shoots him a surprised look out of the corners of his eyes and reaches for his hand across the gear shift. “So am I. You need a rest.”

“So do you.” Charles takes his hand and squeezes it warmly. “I love you, you know.”

“I know,” Erik says with a small, satisfied smile—the kind that Charles lives for. “I hope you know that I love you, too.”

“You do?” Erik shoots him a perturbed glance, and Charles laughs. “Kidding, darling, kidding. Keep your eyes on the road. I don’t want to die before I ever get to try your latkes and all the rest of it.”

“Ah, but it’s so difficult,” Erik sighs, giving Charles his best moony, love-struck look. “How am I supposed to tear my eyes away from your beautiful face?”

“Stop it,” Charles laughs, slapping away Erik’s hand as it reaches towards his thigh. “Don’t make me take those keys away from you and drive all the way to Phoenix myself.”

“Oh _god_ , no,” Erik says with exaggerated haste, putting both hands firmly on the steering wheel and staring fixedly ahead. “Keeping my eyes on the road now, sorry.”

“Hey!” Charles cries, hardly able to stifle the laughter that bubbles in the back of his throat every time he looks at the smile creeping irresistibly onto Erik’s face. “I will have you know that I’m a _fantastic_ driver, thank you very much!”

“Whatever you say, dear,” Erik smirks, and Charles rewards his impudence with a smack to the shoulder. Erik swerves, Charles shrieks, and then they both laugh as the car rights itself and speeds onwards through the desert, past the winter-bare shrubs and the shivering cactuses, away from the quarreling reporters and the insane, wonderful newspaper and the utterly mad, senseless, chaotic town that they’ve left behind—for the moment. A week from now, there will be more stories to cover, more fistfights to prevent, more bad copy to edit, more bills to pay, more long and crazy days to survive. But for now, they laugh and drive and dream of the life—and love—that they’re going to share. For now, at long last, they’re getting away from it all, and Charles—well, quite honestly, Charles couldn’t be more pleased.


End file.
